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A New Book Just Published 




SPIRITISM 



'The*-8iigin*0f*all«Relipris. 



-*^^ 




T SHOWS that there is an Occult Force in Nature 
called the Astral Light, Soul of the World, the Pri- 
^ \p mum Mobile ! the Grand Arcanum of Transcendental 
Magic. The Azoth of the Alchemist, the Akasa of 
the Hindoos, the Holy Ghost of Christianity, arid the Spirits 
of Modern Spiritualism is one and the sanie thing, that it 
acts on man's emotional nature and makes him a religious 
being. ^^. 

y — WRITTEN BY -^-^ 

J. P. Dameron, Attorney- at- Law, 

230 Montgomery Street. 



-wrz/?/^FOR SALK BY TH K^T/Z/^/i/^ 

^-^©-San Francisco IS^e^vs Company 
210 POST STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. 
PRICE, $1 OO 



SPIRITISM; 



THE 



Origin of All Rkligions 



BY 

J p. DAM ERON, 

Author of ''The Dicpiiy Papers^' '' Devil and ' Hell,'' and " The Evil Fo7^ces 

in Nature y 



SAN FRANCISCO, CAL, 

Published by the Author. 

1885. 



PRKKACB 



In presenting this little book to the public, I must ask the kind indulgence 
of the reader, for it has been the work of my leisure hours; a recreation of 
the mind from the dry details of law, which teaches us to deal with facts 
according to law, and to reason out its relations with the many conflicting^ 
interests of mankind. In trying to trace out the origin of these laws 
customs and usages, it has led me far back into the night of time, when man 
emerged from the obscurity of barbarism. Like the explorer of some great ' 
river, as he ascends he beholds the stream branching off into many little 
rivers, and they grow less and less, until at last he finds its source in some 
far-off mountain, fed by the melting of the snows or springs that gush from 
out the granite rocks. 

So it is with law and religion, they both come from the invisible source — ■ 
the mind of man. One teaches him his relations to his fellow-man, and the 
other to his Creator ; one relates to his social nature, the other to his moral 
and spiritual nature. They are closely allied and have much to do with 
each other, the religious status of a people having had much to do in 
shaping their government and civilization. Where a liberal religion has 
prevailed the laws have partaken of its nature and the people prospered 
and were happy ; when illiberal it has tyrannized over man and made him 
a slave to caste and priesthood. 

In all religions there are good moral precepts, and if man would live up 
to them he would be wiser and better, but his animal nature is so strong 
that it often tempts him to violate them ; but they act upon and tend to 
restrain him. It is contended by some that man could not be governed 
without a religion. It makes but little difference what a man's religion is, if 
he be honest and will respect the rights of another. No one should say, 
" My religion is orthodox and yours is heterodox ;" we should all be willing 
to let every one worship God in accordance with the dictates of his own 
conscience, for we are all in the fog and know but little of the life to come. 
We now and then catch a stray bit of evidence that goes to confirm us in 
the belief of the immortality of the soul. It comes like the whispering 



voice of spirits and angels, to tell us that we are immortal and will live 
beyond the grave. Is it our imagination ? 

Whence come these thoughts ? Did we inherit them from the teaching 
of our ancestors ? They had no better evidence of the facts than we see 
around us every day. They tell us these things happened thousands of 
years ago, in benighted Asia, among people just emerging from savagery, 
who had no knowledge of the arts and sciences, geography, astronomy, 
geology, chemistry, botany, biology, etc. They believed the world was flat; 
that the sun, moon and stars moved around the earth ; that the earth was 
created in six days ; that man was made of dust, and that God breathed 
the breath of life into him ; that he caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, 
and took a rib out of his side and made it into a woman. 

These infantile stories of the creation of man and the remarkable revela- 
tions made by God, are conflicting and bear upon their face the evidence of 
exaggeration and credulity. The evolution theory has swept from us the 
myth of Adam and Eve and the eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden 
of Eden, which does away with the necessity of a redeemer and the vicari- 
ous atonement and original sin. It has opened our eyes to the knowledge 
that there is no one standing between us and our Creator ; that every one 
must work out his own salvation and be his own savior, answering for his 
sins according to the law of compensation ; that the laws of nature are 
unchangeable; that the same force that shapes a dewdrop wifl round a 
world ; that suns and stars float in space, and are held in their place by the 
same law that guides the earth in its course around the sun ; that spring 
comes to gladden the earth and make it green ; that winter's frost robes it 
in a white winding sheet of snow ; but the vegetable world is not dead. It Is 
only asleep to blossom again. 

Will man live after death? This is a question that has time and again 
been asked by the most learned sages and philosophers of all ages. Men 
have sacrificed their lives to prove it, they have been deified and churches 
and temples have been reared to honor their sainted names, and a vast mul- 
titude of humanity bowed down in their praise. Still it is an open question, 
and one that Is hard to demonstrate. The only evidence we have Is what 
Spiritism has been able to give us, but it is so conflicting that men of science 
difler as to the value of Its evidence, and the only solution to the question 
Is, each one must investigate for himself, in a spirit of fairness and candor, 
and he will find much that will convince him of the fact. I have examined 



the religions of all ages, and I find that it had its origin in the same intelli- 
gent force one hears in the mysterious rapping, the tipping of the table, the 
invisible pencil writing on a slate, the trance, the clairaudient and clairvoy- 
ant mediums, which is the only solution to all the stories we have read about 
gods, angels, ghosts and devils, that have ever manifested themselves to 
man ; and the object of this book is to show that Spiritism is the origin of 
all religions ; that all the knowledge of the life beyond has come to us 
through the same channel, whether it purported to be from gods, angels, 
saviors, prophets, seers, inspired men, or mediums ; it is one and the same 
thing under different forms and different names, in different ages and differ- 
ent countries. 

The object of the author is not to attack any religion, but to give a fair 
and impartial statement of facts, that will remove the veil that, for ages, has 
mystified man and shut him out from the knowledge that he is a part of the 
divine mind, and if he will but listen to his better nature he can hold con- 
verse with those who have preceded him, which will take away all fear of 
death and damnation and fill the heart with hope and joy. 

J. P. Dameron. 
San Francisco, California, April, 1885. 




CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Chapter I — Spiritism 5 

It is a New Religion; it is American and 

Democratic, and in keeping with the 

Progress of the Age in which we Live. 

The Leading Scientists are Divided — 

Some are Materialists, others are 

Avowed Spiritualists 7 

Chapter II 10 

Occultism — A Hidden P'orce in Nature 
called the Astral Light, the Soul of 
the World, the Primum Mobile, the 
Grand Arcanum of Transcendental 
Magic, the Tetragrammaton of the 
Hebrews, the Thot of the Egyptians, 
the Azoth of the Alchemist, the Akasa 
of the Hindoos, the Secret lost to the 
Masonic Fraternity in the Murder of 
Grand Master Hiram Abiff, Theopse, 
Destiny, Occult Fraternity. 

Akasa, or Life Force 16 

Wonder- Workers of India 17 

Destiny 22 

An Occult Fraternity 22 

Chapter III 24 

Soul of the Universe (Anima Mundi). 
Ether, Psychomancy, Plato and St. 
Paul on the Triune, Body, Spirit and 
Soul, Transmigration, Hindoo Idea 
of a Soul, its Origin and Destiny. 

Psychomancy 26 

Soul 27 

The Soul is Eternal 30 

Chapter IV 35 

Mediums, Ancient and Modern. Pro- 
phets, Seers, Magicians, Soothsayers, 
Astrologers, Fortune-Tellers, Materi- 
alizations, Raps, Trances. 

Mediumship 38 

Materialization 42 

Chapter V 48 

Inspiration and Inspired Men, Saviors, 

Mediators and Mediums. 
Jesus Christ. . . ." 49 



Page. 

Chrisna 52 

Gautama Buddha 53 

Apollonius of Tyana 55 

Pythagoras 55 

Esculapius 56 

^schylus 56 

Xenophon 56 

Cicero 56 

Socrates 57 

Zoroaster 57 

Sosioch 58 

Confucius 58 

Chapter VI 60 

Religion; its Origin, Growth and Devel- 
opment. 
Chapter VII 69 

Ancestral Worship of the Ancient 

Aryans. 

Chapter VIII 78 

Religion of the Ancient Greeks; their 
Gods and Goddesses were only Spirits 
of Departed Sages and Heroes. Their 
Mediums foretold the Future and the 
Past. 
Chapter IX 85 

The Origin of the Christian Religion. 

Christianity 85 

Advent of Christ 85 

Chapter X, 91 

All Religions appear to have one Com- 
mon Origin. The Origin of the Trin- 
ity, Cross, Sacred Rivers, Madonna, 
Ark, Deluge, Fish Story. 

The Trinity 94 

The Holy Communion or Lord's Supper 97 
The Deluge 97 

Chapter XI 100 

The Eight Great Religions of the World. 
Brahminism, Buddhism, Zoroaster- 
ism, Mosaicism, Christianity, Mo- 
hammedanism, Laoteseism and Mod- 
ern Spirit\ialism. 



The Rise and Progress of Modern Spiritualism. 



CHAPTER I. 



It is a New Edition to Old Religions; it is American and Democratic, and in Keeping with the 

Progress of the Age in which We Live. 



"Rap, rap, rap, on the ceiling and floor, 

On the pictures and door; 
What is it that makes such a noise ?" 

All scientific investigations point to the fact 
that the earth was created by fixed laws, and 
that it was intended for the express purpose of 
developing man. For in him heaven and earth 
have contributed all their best material, and 
worked it over well for millions upon millions of 
years, raising up mountains and eroding them 
down into the sea. Mineral, vegetable and ani- 
mal life changed often before it was fit to be 
worked into man, the last crowning act of crea- 
tion. In him enters everything, therefore he is a 
microcosm, his physical and intellectual pow- 
ers are the perfection of nature and the pride 
of the all wise master. 

Is it reasonable, yea, is it possible that 
all this should be done to make a superior ani- 
mal who should eat, drink and use all the 
bountiful stores that nature had provided in 
building up the globe as a fit habitation for him 
that he should die and his body return to dust 
from whence it sprang; if so creation is a grand 
failure, and should there be no soul survive 
death, or was it intended that out of him should 
spring another form that would retain the know- 
ledge and the individual identity in a more sub- 
limated condition, capable of further progress. 
I see nothing indicating that mind — intelligence 
— can be destroyed or annihilated any more than 
that of force and matter, which has produced 
him. Then this intelligence must exist in an 
individual form, and that form must begin in 
another. On the investigation of the phenome- 
na of modern Spiritualism I am forced to ad- 



mit that there it nothing in it that is contrary 
to the fixed laws of evolution — but it throws 
new light on the life-forces of the universe called 
life, soul and spirit. 

There should be no conflict between science 
and religion. While science deals in facts that 
are demonstrable to the five senses, and is 
aided by observation, comparison and deduc- 
tion from which a knowledge of phenomena and 
of the order of succession is derived. Spiritism 
offers to lend its aid and assist science to ex- 
plore those hidden realms of metaphysics and 
with the higher developed senses of clairaudi- 
ence and clairvoyance which the academy of 
science at Paris has called the sixth sense, so 
with this higher development they will be able 
to go farther into the workings of the human 
mind and bring to light that hidden force 
called spirit, the life force of the universe that 
has caused matter to evolve and work out so 
many changes and forms in the physical world. 
As each atom of matter is accompanied by cer- 
tain force or intelligence that cause that particle 
of matter to attract or repel other particles of 
matter, so that it knows its affinities and re- 
pels its dislikes; it forms the minerals in crys- 
tals, cubes, cones and prisms, for all matter is 
moved and governed by certain laws that are 
acting and reacting throughout the visible and 
invisible world and the invisible forms of 
matter are the most active and numerous; yet 
because we can not reach or comprehend these 
operations of matter with the five senses we 
cannot say it does not exist or move, but reason 
aided by observation and comparison is forced 
to admit the fact. We cannot see, feel or hear 



6 



the iron crystalize but we are satisfied that it 
does under certain conditions, so there is a si- 
lent work ever going on in the secret laboratory 
of nature that is beyond the keen perception or 
understanding of the man of science, but which 
is revealed to the higher developed senses of the 
disembodied spirits and to those mediums that 
occupy a border land. 

So science should cease its hostility and cul- 
tivate that intuitional sense of the inner man 
(the spirit) which, if properly understood 
and trained, would aid it in the great work of 
arriving at the truth, which would lead to a 
higher civilization and amelioration of the hu- 
man race by expanding the intellect in the di- 
rection of the spiritual, for the heart must be cul- 
tivated as well as the head, for the inner man 
has much to do with the outer man. And un- 
til science and Spiritualism, physics and meta- 
physics go hand in hand the highest attainments 
will not be reached. As Joliet says, "while 
the Western Nations have been following the 
physical laws, the Hindoo fakirs have been fol- 
lowing the metaphysical laws of the spirit, by 
which they can control and perform wonderful 
things that startle the European with wonder 
and amazement, while we can by our know- 
ledge perform wonders that are as startling to 
them." 

That mind and matter, physics and meta- 
physics are all united in man and that he should 
investigate one as well as the other, that there 
is no dividing line; that it is the ignorance of 
science of these metaphysical laws that shut 
the door in the face of the pursuer of know- 
ledge, and all that is required is to knock and 
it shall be opened; that man is the beginning 
of our individualized intelligence that never 
dies but follows the laws of progress through 
endless realms; that there is no end or limit to 
knowledge in this life or the higher life to come 
in the spirit land; that there is no secret in 
nature's laws beyond the reach of individu- 
alized intelligence of the aspiring mind. 

Science, proud of her attainments and justly 
so, strong in her foundations of laws and un- 
assailable in her primal principles, has never- 
theless arrogated to herself more rights than she 
actually possesses, and claims not only to dic- 
tate to man the essential properties and elements 
that constitute the physical body, but here it 



shuts the door against any investigation of that 
which belongs to his spiritual nature. 

The result is that materialism is closely en- 
croaching upon the church and is fast under- 
mining and destroying the spiritual faith of the 
inner man and reducing him down to a piece 
of clay, destitute of any spirituality, while the 
churches are divided and making war on Mod- 
ern Spiritualism, and invoke the aid of science 
to demonstrate the fact that it is all a delusion, 
at the same time proving to the world that 
all religion is nothing but a deception; for if 
there are no spirits for the Spiritualists there 
can be none for the churches. 

The greatest difficulty in describing that 
which relates to man's spiritual nature is the 
absolute ignorance of humanity concerning its 
nature. The spiritual laws have heretofore 
been ignored; the power of one mind upon an- 
other, the influence of spirit upon spirit, have 
scarcely been considered, while that spiritual 
power by which Jesus wrought miracles and 
spells (and also his disciples), which he promis- 
ed should be given to all who believed and fol- 
lowed in him, has been wholly blotted out and 
tabooed by the church, and any attempt to re- 
vive it is denounced as the work of the devil, so 
that religion has come to mean a simple state- 
ment, a form, a ceremony, a theory, without any 
intermediate links connecting it with the world of 
causes and human existence, whereas in the time 
of Jesus it was a matter of daily life and experi- 
ence and was so understood and practiced by 
him and his disciples. The spirit was the great 
motor power by which these miracles were per- 
formed. 

The working of spiritual gifts has ceased be- 
cause they have been ignored by the church, 
and the temporal power and material influence 
of civilization, which has encouraged a growth 
of materialism. Prosperity, the building up of 
states, endowing institutions, the rearing of 
splendid structures and churches, goes far to 
build up the material welfare of nations and 
society; but they take away from the mind those 
absolute conditions that are eccential to the ex- 
istence of spiritual gifts — simplicity, natural- 
ness, dependence upon the unseen and the rec- 
ognition of the higher nature of the spirits in 
all that belongs to daily life. In following the 
material, man has lost much of the spiritual pow- 



er that the ancients had. Though he has made 
great progress in the physical laws of nature 
in the discovery of steam and electricity, he has 
lost sight of the more subtle psychical force 
of mind over matter, which enabled the ancients 
to divine the future and tell the past. It has 
weU nigh cut humanity off from all religions 
and made him a materialist. 



The Leading- Scientists are Divided — Some are 
Materialists, others are Avowed Spriritualists. 

Darwin could not see anything behind blind 
matter, forcing up the vegetable and animal 
life, but the " survival of the fittest." Herbert 
Spencer thinks that matter is impelled by the 
active forces in nature to evolve all forms of 
life according to its environments; Huxley ad- 
mits that there is an " unknowable " force back 
of or in the atom that im pells it to assume cer- 
tain forms. Agassiz thought all matter was 
impelled by an invisible intelligence, but.would 
not admit that it was done by the spirit forces, 
still he believed in a God — a Supreme First 
Cause — that caused all matter to evolve under 
certain laws. While, on the other hand, we 
have the illustrious names of Alexander Aksa- 
koff, Robert Chambers, Hiram Corson, Au- 
gustus de Morgan, J. W. Edmonds, Dr. Elliot- 
son, I. H. Fichte, Zollner, Prof. Ulriciof Halle, 
Camille Flammaron, Herman Goldschmidt, 
Dr. Hoffle, Robert Hare, Lord Lyndhurst, 
Robert Dale Owen, Victor Hugo, W. M. 
Thackeray, T. A. Trollope, Alfred Russel 
Wallace (a naturalist and scientist, a cotempo- 
rary with Darwin), Nicholas Wagner, Arch- 
bishop Whately, Pasteur, the author of the 
germ theory, and Professor Crookes, who stand 
high in science and learning, all are firm be- 
lievers in Spiritism, and that the departed from 
this life live, can and do return and hold com- 
munication with mortals. These men have 
placed the mediums under the strictest test. 
Profs. Wallace, Crookes and Zollner took the 
mediums to their own homes and placed them 
under the strictest test conditions. On one oc- 
casion Mr. Varley, the electrician, by means 
of a galvanic battery and cable-testing appara- 
tus, showed to the satisfaction of all present, 
that the medium was inside of the cabinet, 
while the supposed spirit form was visible and 
moving outside. Prof. Crookes says: "It was 



a common thing for the seven or eight of us in 
the laboratory to see Miss Cook (the medium) 
and " Kate'' (the spirit) at the same time un- 
der the full blaze of the electric light.'' Wil- 
liam Crookes, after making many tests wath 
such mediums as D. D. Home, Kate Fox, and 
others, says that "the spirits can move heavy 
bodies. That they can make sounds and raps; 
that they can alter the weight of bodies, and 
move bodies when at a distance from the me- 
dium; raise tables and chairs off the ground; 
the levitation of human beings; luminous ap- 
pearances; the appearance of hands writing; 
phantom forms and faces." 

SPIRITISM IS- AS OLD AS THE HISTORY OF MAN. 

It appeared to Adam in the Garden of Eden; 
it directed Noah how to build the ark; Moses 
saw it in the burning bush; the spirits (angels) 
often appeared to Abraham, and at one time 
ate veal cutlets with him in his tent; Saul saw 
the spirit (or ghost) of Samuel at the Witch of 
Endor; the spirit closed the mouth of the lion 
when Daniel was thrown into the lion's den; 
Jesus saw Moses and Elias on the mount of 
transfiguration, and they talked with him; St. 
Paul heard voices and was liberated from prison 
by them; St. John had trances and saw the 
New Jerusalem. Take the Spiritualism out of 
the Bible and it would be a tame, dull history 
of the Jews; but read through the light of Spir- 
itualism it is full of interest and grandeur. 

Spiritism is the basis of all religions and the 
only way man has got any knowledge of a fu- 
ture existence. It manifested itself in the Del- 
phic oracles as well as to the Hebrew^ prophets, 
if we are to believe the Greek authors. Socra- 
tes says he received all his knowledge from his 
little demon (spirit) that whispered it into his 
ears. The Platonic philosophy was but little 
different from that of Modern Spiritualism. 
Homer is one grand poem of the gods (spirits) 
taking a deep interest in the affairs of nations 
and individuals. The Greeks lived close to 
nature and held communion through the ora- 
cles with departed heroes and sages. The Ro- 
mans had their sybaline books and vestal vir- 
gins, who held communion with the dead. 
Cicero was a firm believer in the spirits, and 
was a medium; his orations burn with the fire 
of inspiration. 



Every age has had its spiritual manifestations; 
every period has witnessed something of the 
kind; every fireside has its ghost story, and ev- 
ery family has something of its wonders to re- 
late. It is nothing new. In the year 364, in 
the reign of the Roman emperor Valen«, me- 
diums conversed by the means of rappings 
and employed the alphabet, as also the spirit 
pendulum. It finally passed into disrepute as 
a black art and was denounced by the priests 
as the doings of the devil. Independent slate 
writing was known to the Chinese over a thou- 
sand years ago. Trance mediums were known 
to the ancient Hindoos, Persians and Greeks; 
so was that of healing, clairaudience and clair- 
voyance; they saw and heard spirits. 

Christ was a medium of the highest order; 
he made his appearance to battle against the 
materialism of his day; he was invested with 
wonderful power to convince the wicked world 
that he was sent from God to teach reforma- 
tion, but they would not believe him but cruci- 
fied him. Luther had wonderful mediumistic 
power. He saw spirits and threw an inkstand 
at the head of an evil one. The Rosicrucians 
were invested with wonderful power and were 
scoffed at by the materialists as fanatics. They 
led a most singularly isolated, pure life. The 
Huguenots were persecuted on account of their 
spiritual dissensions from the Catholic church. 
The Quakers, whose leaders were George Fox 
and others, claimed a revelation from the di- 
vine mind. William Penn, the founder of 
Pennsylvania, was one of its followers. The 
Shakers, an advanced class of Quakers, so 
called from their shaking and nervous twitch- 
ing. They were led to follow their peculiar 
life of celibacy from the teachings of Ann 
Lee. 

In the more modern times it manifested it- 
self in Caines and Marvels in France in 1686. 
Swedenborg alleges that he was in full and open 
communication with the spirit world, and daily 
conversed with spirits and angels. 

In 1829, the Seeress of Prevost startled the 
world with what she saw, and mysterious raps 
were often heard around her. 

In 1830 the French mesmerists Billot and 
Deleuze say they saw and felt spirits, and there 
was a possibility of communicating with them. 

Modern Spiritualism had its origin in the 



rappings of the Fox sisters and in the writings 
of A. J. Davis, who published "Nature's Di- 
vine Revelations; a Voice to Mankind," in 
July, 1847, in which he enunciated the doc- 
trine of evolution ten years prior to that of 
Darwin. 

About the same time in the little village of 
Hydesville, N. Y., in a small, unpretending 
dwelling lived Mr. Fox, his wife and two 
daughters. Kate, the youngest, about 9 years 
old, was the first medium to detect and recog- 
nize the raps, which for some time amazed the 
family. With the assistance of her mother 
she was she first to establish a system of signals 
by raps, though they had been heard often by 
different persons. 

Rev. John Wesley's daughters were similarly 
annoyed by a spirit who answered to the name 
of "Old Jeff," but Wesley requested it to 
leave and let his children alone; at last it dis- 
appeared, and he lost the golden opportunity 
to make the discovery. But the manifestation 
of the spirit attended his religious revivals in 
another form — that of shouting. 

It is not a religion covered with moss and 
rust of past ages, but one that is fresh and new 
in keeping with the progress of the age. 

IT IS STRICTLY AMERICAN AND DEMOCRATIC; 

It has no synods, conferences or ecumenical 
councils, to fix up creeds and dogmas to de- 
clare what is the word of God. It has no 
priests, bishops or popes, to grant absolutions 
and forgive sins. It has no head or leader. 
The medium may be a child uneducated; if the 
communications don't bear the strictest scruti- 
ny and test they are rejected. Every one is 
the judge, none being required to believe un- 
less they wish; all are at liberty to criticize and 
comment whether it is truthful or false. The 
spirit is cross-questioned and examined, and if 
it don't stand the test it is discarded. It de- 
nounces all leadership, all individual 7?ian wor- 
shippings making every believer rely solely on 
himselt and seek his own salvation through his 
own exertions. It teaches individuality — "/ 
am a man and you are another." Every indi- 
vidual is his own priest; if he has sins he must 
confess them to himself, and he must work out 
his own salvation. It believes in good works; 
short prayers, for God is not captured by elo- 



9 



quent words and long prayers, but is pleased 
with a pure hearc and a forgiving disposition. 
Good deeds and kind words are worth a thou- 
sand prayers. 

It is little over a quarter of a century old, 
but now numbers over 25,000,000 of believers, 
making way amongst the most intelligent and 
wealthy classes — emperors, kings and queens. 
Though not demonstrative it is undermining all 
the older forms of religion that had their ori- 
gin in the night of the past. It is a religion 
that is making rapid progress with the intelli- 
gent and thinking masses, for it is in accord 
with science and the laws of evolution. It 
carries conviction to all who will investigate it 
with candor^^and honesty of purpose. To the 
fair-minded man who is not steeped in preju- 
dices of the old theology, there is evidence 
given, if he will examine, to convince him that 



there is an invisible individual intelligence that 
sees and understands him and lets him know 

j that his departed friends are not dead but pres- 
ent and holding converse w4th him. The se- 
verest tests are given, that|no one^can explain 

^ save that it is the spirit of a departed^acquaint- 

' ance, friend, mother, father, brother, wife or 

' child. 

Man needs not external revelations but an 
internal illumination whereby he can under- 
stand the relations he sustains to himself, his 
brother man and the physical world. Such an 
illumination is bestowed on, though not per- 
ceived by all; that myriad hosts of the angel 
world are around us; they mingle in the affairs 
of men; their atmosphere is Jan exhaustless 
fountain from which we draw our thoughts and 
aspirations. 




CHAPTER II. 



OCCULTISM. 

A Hidden Force in Nature called the Astral Light, The Soul of the World, The Primum Mobile, the 

Grand Arcanum of Transcendental Magic, The Tetragrammaton of the Hebrews, The 

Thot of the Egyptians, The Azoth of the Alchemist, The Akasa of the 

Hindoos, The Secret lost to the Masonic Fraternity in the 

Murder of Grand Master Hiram Abiff, Theopae, 

V Destiny, Occult Fraternity. 

"The power of thought, the magic of the mind." — Byron. 



Cicero was of the opinion that the Chaldeans 
were among the oldest magicus, who placed the 
basis of all magic in the inner powers of man's 
soul, and by the discernment of magic proper- 
ties in plants, minerals and animals. By their 
aid they performed the most wonderful "mira- 
cles." Magic was their religion, and synony- 
mous with science. 

The influence of magic may be traced in the 
legends of Prometheus, Sisyphus, Circle and 
Medea. The Greek and Roman mythologies 
are full of it, and they had implicit faith in 
their oracles, auguries and divinations. The 
mythologies of the ancient Germans, Slavs and 
Celts were similar. The Druids also possessed 
the secret art. The crusaders looked upon 
magic as the peculiar ally of the infidels. 

In the fourteenth century magic arose into 
repute as a lawful art, and sovereigns maintamed 
magicians at their courts. The most prominent 
of these European magicians, adepts and writ- 
ers was Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Ar- 
noldus de Villanova, Daniel Defoe and Eliphas 
Levi, of the present century. 

The arts of magic are founded upon the the- 
ory that there is an occult force in nature called 
the astral light, the soul of the world, and the 
primiim mobile^ which is the grand arcanum of 
transcendental magic, the Tetagrammaton of the 
Hebrews, the Azoth of the Alchemist, the Thot 



of the Egyptians, and the Akasa of the Hindoos. 
By this element, which abounds in the celestial 
bodies and descends in the rays of the stars, 
every occult property is conveyed into herbs, 
stones, metals and minerals, making them 
solary, lunary, jovial, ethereal, mercurial, etc., 
according to the planetary influences. * * 
In it thoughts are realized, and images of past 
persons and things are preserved, so that spec- 
ters may be evoked from it, and shown to the 
world as real objects and things — as sounds 
and words are preserved in the audiphone. 

The adepts in magic claim that the sorcerer, 
or practicer of the black art, differs from the 
true magician as the charlatan from the master 
of the art; that the former invokes and uses the 
evil force or bad spirits, while the true magician 
uses the good force or good spirits. According 
to the teachings of Cornelius Agrippa, there are 
several kinds of magic, but they are generally 
reduced to two: white or divine magic, or magic 
within its proper province; and black or infer- 
nal magic, to which belong chiromancy, the 
evil eye, the command of the elements (of evil), 
the power of transforming human beings into 
animals, etc. In the black, the magician sells 
himself to the devil; in the white, the devil 
is controlled and obsessed by the magician. 

To have command of this element, to direct 
its currents and to discern its moving panorama. 



11 



is the highest attainment, and the incorapre 
hensible secret of the magician. To reveal it 
is to lose it; to impart it even to a disciple is to 
abdicate in his favor. To command this force 
and its secrets requires the highest and best as 
well as the purest intellect, dauntless courage 
and unbending will, discretion, devotion, and 
habitual silence, and to be free from tempta- 
tions. He must be chaste, sober, disinterested, 
inaccessible, free from prejudice and passions, 
and w^ithout physical defect. He must live a 
life of abstinence, having certain hours for med- 
itation. He must make physical wants yield 
to those of the mind; he must be able to live 
on the scantiest diet, barely enough to keep soul 
and body together, like the Hindoo fakirs. 

It is claimed by some that the key to this 
magical art was lost to Solomon in the death of 
Hiram Abiff, the widow's son, who was the 
Grand Master of the Lodge, and since the sub- 
stitution of the other word the Masons have lost 
the control over this occult force, by which 
they were in olden times enabled to work won- 
ders, which are recorded in the Bible and on 
obelisks and pyramids of Egypt. 

It is claimed that Jesus Christ was an adept, 
and through his knowledge he was enabled to 
perform so many miracles. To the initiated it 
was not strange, but it was done in accordance 
with natural forces and the fixed laws of occult- 
ism. 

The trident of Paracelsus was believed to 
have all the virtues the cabala attributes to the 
words, and which the hierophants of Alexandria 
ascribed to the celebrated word Abracadabra . 
It gave a complete knowledge and mastery of 
nature, the secrets of the future, and the com- 
mand of the elementary spirits; to heal the sick, 
to move things around with an invisible hand, 
to call up the spirits of the dead, and do many 
things that are now done by spiritual mediums. 
The tipping of tables, raps and independent 
slate writing were all known to the ancient 
adepts. 

In the books of Moses there are many instan- 
ces of the magicians performing wonders, and 
the Egyptian magicians could do what Aaron 
and Moses did, only Aaron's rod made the big- 
gest snake and gobbled up all the rest; so if it 
is a snake story, Moses' was the biggest. 

These magicians played an important part in 



the Persian religion, and vvhen the Jews returned 
from their Babylonian captivity, they brought 
back with them the secrets of the magician, 
and they played an important part, and out of 
them they manufactured their devil, or evil one, 
with whom they used to scare the ignorant into 
submission; for they ruled the people and used 
this art to make them believe it vvas the work 
of Jehovah ; for all the miracles claimed to be 
done by them were the same as those performed 
by the ancient Persian and Egyptian magi- 
cians. 

Simon Magus could fly off in the air before 
his disciples and the crowd of witnesses, with- 
out going through any circle-making used by 
the jugglers ; nor is this art confined to the 
ancients. Mr. Turner, the author of the 
"Embassy to Thibet," tells some strange sto- 
ries, and he corroborates the story of the Abbe 
Hue of the reincarnation of Buddha, and that 
of Lahma (priests) sending their astral souls oft 
to perform missions and carry messages, what 
we call mental telegraphy. 

The wonderful things done by the magicians 
of Kashmir, Thibet, Mongolia and Great Tar- 
tary are too well known to need comment. If 
jugglers they be, they have defied all detection 
even by the best and most expert necromancer 
of Europe and America. (See Jamblicher's 
Mysteries Egypt ^ I. 26, Theurgy.) 

Epimenides, the Orphikos, was renowned for 
his sacred and marvelous nature. He had the 
faculty of sending his soul out of his body as 
long as he pleased. 

Appollonius could at any time send his soul 
out. He was a great magician. 

Empedoclesof Agrigenteum, the Pythagorean 
thaumaturgist, required no conditions to arrest 
a waterspout which had broken over a city. 
Neither did he need any to recall a w'oman to 
life. He used no dark rooms or cabinets, van- 
ishing suddenly in the air before the eyes of the 
Emperor Domitian and a whole crowd of wit- 
nesses (many thousands). He appeared an 
hour later in the grotto of Puteoli. He evi- 
dently did it by sending off his astral body, 
while his own physical body he rendered invis- 
ible by the concentration of akasa about it, 
then quietly walked out of the crowd to some 
retreat, where he remained until the return of 
his double or astral soul. 



12 



The astral soul scin-lecca (double) is able to 
draw itself out of the body while in a profound 
sleep, and often travels around and sees places, 
so that when the person is awake and comes 
across these places he is sometimes impressed 
that he has been there before. Some persons' 
visions are so clear that they are able to see 
these astral bodies, and it has given rise to 
spooks and ghosts. Some mediums are able to 
withdraw their astral hands, and this accounts 
for an extra hand often witnessed at seances. 
Little by little the whole astral body may ooze 
out like a passing cloud, until two forms appear 
where there was only one, the one more shad- 
owy than the other. 

The trinity of nature is the lock of magic, 
the trinity of man the key that fits it. It is 
unthinkable and unpronounceable, and yet 
every man finds in himself his God. "Who 
"art thou, O fair being?" inquired the disem- 
bodied soul in the KJiordah Avesta, at the gates 
of Paradise. "I am, O Soul, thy good and 
" purest thoughts, thy works and thy good law, 
"* ^ thy angel '^ * and thy God." Then 
man or soul is reunited with tfself, for this 
"son of God" is one with him; it is his own 
mediator, the God of his human soul and his 
justifier. " God not revealing himself immedi- 
ately to man, the spirit is his interpreter," says 
Plato in the Banquet. 

Paracelsus says, "The human spirit is so 
"great a thing that no man can express it! 
" As God himselt is eternal and unchangeable, 
"so also is the mind of man. If we rightly 
"understood its powers nothmg would be im- 
" possible to us on earth. The imagination is 
"strengthened and developed through faith in 
"our will. Faith must confirm the imagina- 
" tion, for faith establishes the will." 

Jacolliot, the great writer and translator of 
Oriental literature, says that "it is impossible 
" for him to give an account of the marvelous 
" facts witnessed while among the Hindoos. 
" The many strange and startling things done by 
"them would, if told, tend to make the Euro- 
" peans look upon me as a Munchausen, or a 
"greater liar than Sinbad the Sailor." But 
adds with entire truthfulness, " Let it suffice to 
" say, that in regard to magnetism and spiritism 
" Europe has yet to stammer over the first let- 
" ters of the alphabet, and that the Brahmans 



"have reached, in these two departments of 
" learning, results in the way of phenomena, 
"that are truly stupefying. When one sees 
" these strange manifestations, whose power one 
"cannot deny, without grasping the laws that 
" the Brahmans keep so carefully concealed, the 
"mind is overwhelmed with wonder and lost in 
"amazement. 

"The only explanation we have been able to 
" obtain on the subject from a learned Brahman 
"with whom we were on terms of the closest 
" intimacy was this : ' You have studied phys- 
" ical nature, and you have obtained, through 
"the laws of nature, marvelous results — steam, 
" electricity, etc. For twenty thousand years 
"or more we have studied the intellectual 
" forces; we have discovered their laws, and we 
" obtain, by making them act alone or in con- 
" cert with other matter, phenomena still more 
"astonishing than your own. 

" While there are in the science which the 
" Brahmans call occult, phenomena so extraor- 
" dinary as to baffle all investigation, theie is 
"not one which cannot be explained, and 
"which is not subject to natural law, if prop- 
" erly understood, which any initiated Brahman 
"could if he would explain every phenomena; 
" while our ablest physicist is not able to explain 
" even the most trivial occult phenomenon 
" produced by a fakir pupil of a pagoda, much 
" less those performed by an adept." 

To comprehend the principles of the natural 
law involved in occultism, we must keep in 
mind the fundamental proposition of Oriental 
philosophy, i. There is no mtf-acle. Every- 
thing that happens is the result of law — eternal, 
immutable, ever active. (Apparent miracle is 
but the operation of forces antagonistic to the 
well-ascertained laws of nature, but are un- 
known to science.) And what is not known or 
understood has always been considered by the 
ignorant as a miracle. 

2. Nature is triune. There is a visible, objec- 
tive nature; an invisible, indwelling, energizing 
nature, the external model of the other, and its 
vital principle; and above these two, spirit, 
source of all forces, alone eternal and inde- 
structible. The lower two, consequently, 
change; the highest, the third, does not. 

3. Man is also triune. He has his physical 
body; his vitalizing, astral or spiritual body^ 



13 



the real man; and these two are brooded over 
and illuminated by the third — the sovereign, 
the i77i7iwrtal soul. When the real man suc- 
ceeds in merging himself with the latter, he 
becomes an immortal entity. 

4. Magic, as a science, is a knowledge of 
these principles, and of the way by which the 
omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and 
its control over nature's forces may be acquired 
by the individual while still in the body. 
Magic, as an art, is the application of this 
knowledge in practice. 

5. Arcane knowledge misapplied is sorcery; 
beneficially used, true magic or wisdom. 

6. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship. 
The medium is the passive instrument of foreign 
influences; the adept actively controls himself 
and all inferior potencies. 

7. All things that ever were, that now are or 
shall be, having their record upon the astral 
light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the ini- 
tiated adept, by using the vision of his own 
spirit, can know all that has known or can be 
known. 

8. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts, as in 
color, stature, or any other external quality. 
Among some peoples seership naturally prevails, 
among others, mediumship. Some are addict- 
ed to sorcery, and transmit its secret rules of 
[)ractice from generation to generation, with a 
range of psychical phenomena, more or less 
wide, as the result. 

9. One phase of magical skill is the voluntary 
and conscious withdrawal of the inner man 
(astral form) from the outer man (physical body). 
In the cases of some mediums withdrawal oc- 
curs, but it is unconscious and involuntary. 
With the latter the body is more or less catalep- 
tic at such times; but with the adept the absence 
of the astral foim would not be noticed, for the 
physical senses are alert, and the individual 
appears only as though in a fit of abstraction, 
"a brown stiidy," as some call it. 

The astral form can go anywhere, penetrate 
any obstacle, neither time nor space are to be 
considered; it moves with the rapidity of thought 
and the wings of electricity. The thaumatur- 
gist skilled in the occult science, can make his 
astral form visible, and assume protean "jhapes 
and appear at different places, and by his will- 
power can cast a mesmeric hallucination over 



his audience so as to make them believe that 
what they saw was real, when in reality it was 
but a picture in their minds, so impressed by 
him; while his physical body seems to disappear 
or assume any shape that he may choose. In 
this way he quietly slips away and leaves his 
astral body, then this astral form suddenly rises 
and floats off in the air, which the spectators 
mistook for the real body. 

Swedenborgians believe, and arcane science 
teaches, that the soul often leaves and abandons 
the body, from various causes, as that of over- 
powering grief, fright, despair, violent attack of 
sickness, or excessive sensuality, and leaves the 
vacant carcass, v.'hich may be entered and in- 
habited by the astral form of an adept sorcerer 
or an elementary (an earth-bound disembodied 
human soul). In cases of insanity the patient's 
astral being is either semi-paralyzed, bewildered 
and subject to the influence of every passing 
spirit of any sort, or it has departed from the 
body forever, and the body is taken possession 
of by some vampyrish entity near its own dis- 
integration and clinging desperately to earth, 
whose sensual pleasures it may enjoy and pro- 
long for awhile. 

Magic is the knowledge of magnetism and 
electricity, their qualities, correlations and 
potencies, and their effects on the animal king- 
dom and man. It is essential wisdom, nature, 
the material ally, pupil and servant of the ma- 
gician. As one common vital principle per- 
vades all things, and this is controllable by the 
perfected human will, the adept by the know- 
ledge of its laws can stimulate the movement of 
the material forces in plants and animals in a 
preternatural degree, by using and controlling 
these hidden forces in nature to quicken the 
conditions of its nature, and produce more 
rapid results; thus, for example, make a plant 
mature in a few miuutes which would take 
months and years by the slow natural growth. 
Many minerals and plants have within them 
hidden powers, such as lodestone, opium and 
hasheesh. The adept can control the sensitive 
and alter the conditions of the physical and 
astral bodies of other persons not adepts. He 
can also govern and employ as he pleases the 
spirits of the elements, but not that of immortal 
spirit. 

There are two kinds of seership — that of the 



14 



soul and that of the spirit. The seershij) of 
the ancient Pythoness, or of the modern mes- 
merized subject, vary but in the artificial modes 
adopted to induce the state of clairvoyance. 
But as the vision of both depends upon the 
acuteness of the senses of the astral body, they 
differ very widely from the perfect, omniscient 
spiritual state; for at best the subject can get 
but glimpses of truth through the veil which 
physical nature interposes. 

The astral principle or mind, called by the 
Hindu Yogtn Flav-atnia, is the sentient soul, 
inseparable from our physical brain, which it 
holds in subjection, and is in its turn equally 
trammeled by it. This is the ego, the intellect- 
ual life-principle of man, his conscious entity. 
While yet in the material body the correctness 
of its spiritual vision depends on its more or 
less intimate relation to its higher principle. 
When the relation is such as to allow the most 
ethereal portions of the soul-essence to act in- 
dependently of its grosser particles and of the 
brain, it can unerringly comprehend what it sees, 
then only is it the pure, rational, supersentient 
soul. That state is known in India as the 
samaddi ; it is the highest spiritual condition 
known to man. 

But when the body is in a total catalepsy of 
the physical frame, the soul of the clairvoyant 
may liberate itself and perceive things subject- 
ively; and yet, as the sentient principle of the 
brain is alive and active, these pictures of the 
past, present and future, will be tinctured with 
the terrestrial perceptions of the objective 
world; the physical memory and fancy will be 
in the way of clear vision. But the seer adept 
knows how to suspend the mechanical action of 
the brain, by forcing to stop thinking. His 
vision will be clear as truth itself, uncolored 
and undistorted; whereas the clairvoyant, una- 
ble to control the vibrations of the astral waves, 
will perceive, more or less, but broken images 
through the medium of the brain. The seer 
can never take fleeting shadows for realities, for 
his memory being as completely subjected to 
his will as the rest of the body, he receives im- 
pressions directly from his spirit. Between his 
subjective and objective selves there are no ob- 
structive mediums. This is the real spiritual 
seership in which, according to an expression of 
Plato, soul is raised above all inferior good. 



When we reach " that which is supreme, which 
is simple, pure and iitichangeable, without form, 
color or human qualities, \hQ God — our nous." 
This is the state which such seers as Plotinus 
and .A.ppollonius termed " union to the Deity," 
which the ancient Yogins called Isva7'a and the 
modern call Samaddi. But this state is as far 
above modern clairvoyance as the stars above 
the glow-worm. Plotinus, as is well known, 
was a clairvoyant-seer during his whole life, and 
yet he had been united to his God but six times 
during his life, as he confessed to Porphyry. 

The Brahmans divide these powers into eight 
degrees or powers: i, Anima; 2, Mahima; 
3, Layhima; 4, Garima; 5, Prapi; 6, Prakamga; 
7, Vasitwa; 8, Isitwa, or divine power. The 
fifth predicting future events, understanding 
unknown languages, curing diseases, divining 
unexpressed thoughts, understanding the lan- 
guage of the heart. The sixth is the power of 
converting old age into youth. The seventh is 
the power of mesmerizing human beings and 
beasts and making them obedient; it is the 
power of resisting passions and emotions. The 
eighth power is the spiritual state, and presup- 
poses the absence of the above seven powers, 
as in this state the Yogi is full of God. 

Subjective communication with the human, 
god-like spirits of those who have preceded us 
to the silent land of bliss, is in India divided 
into three categories. Under the spiritual train- 
ing of a Guru or Lanrizasi the vaton (disciple 
or neophyte) begins to feel them. Were he 
not, under the immediate guidance of an adept, 
he would be controlled by the invisibles, and 
utterly at their mercy, for among these subject- 
ive influences he is unable to discern the good 
from the bad. Happy the sensitive who is sure 
of the purity of his spiritual atmosphere. 

To this subjective consciousness, which is the 
first degree is after a time added that of clairau- 
dience. This is the second degree or stage of 
development. The sensitive — when not natur- 
ally made so by psychological training — now 
audibly hears but is still unable to discern, and 
is incapable of verifying his impressions, and 
one who is unprotected the tricky powers of the 
air but too often delude with semblances of 
voices and speech. But the Guru's influence 
is there; it is the most powerful shield against 
the intrusions of the Chritwa into the atmos- 



15 



phere of the vaton, consecrated to the pure, 
human and celestial Pitris. 

When a Buddhist ascetic has reached the 
fourth degree, he is considered a rahat. He 
produces every kind of phenomena by the soul 
power of his freed spirit. A rahat, says the 
Buddhist, is one who has acquired the power of 
flying in the air, becoming invisible, command- 
ing the elements, and working all manner of 
wonders, commonly, but erroneously, called 
[meipo) miracles. He is a perfect man, a demi- 
god. A god he will become when he reaches 
Nervana, for, like the initiates of both testa- 
ments, the worshipers of Buddha know that 
they " are gods." 

The astral soul has only passed from the 
visible to the invisible world, and may be per- 
ceived by the inner sense of vision, which is 
adapted to the things of that other and more 
real universe. The same rule applies to sound, 
as the physical ear discerns the vibrations of the 
atmosphere up to a certain point, not yet defi- 
nitely fixed, but varying with the individual, so 
the adept whose interior hearing has been de- 
veloped, can take the sound at this vanishing 
point and hear its vibrations in the astral light 
indefinitely. He needs no wires, helices or 
sounding-boards; his will-power is all-sufficient. 
Hearing with spirit, time and distance offer no 
impediments, and so he may converse with an- 
other adept at the antipodes with as great ease 
as though they were in the same room. 

Spiritual Life is the primordial principle 
above Physical Life, it is the primordial prin- 
ciple behind; but they are one under their dual 
aspect. " As it is above, so it is below; as in 
heaven, so on earth." One is the counterpart 
of the other; one is spiritual, and the other is 
material or terrestrial. 

Magic, in ancient times, was considered as 
a divine science; wisdom and knowledge of 
God. The healing art in the temples of zIlscu- 
lapius, and at the shrines of Egypt and the East, 
was always magical, and the secrets intrusted 
only to the initiated. Then the priest was the 
medical adviser of soul and body, as the former 
.has much to do with the latter, as it is conceded 
that the mind has much iuiluence over the body, 
and health depends on that of a sound mind; 
therefore to be a successful physician he must 
understand both body and mind, and the soul 



is embraced in the latter, and has control of it, 
which is immortal and becomes more active 
after the soul has left the body. 

The inner entity of man is more or less divine 
according to its proximity to the crown — 
christos. The purer and better a man is, 
the closer and more serene is his life and freer 
from external dangers, and the clearer and bet- 
ter are his impressions and his visions into the 
future. It is this that has, in all ages of the 
world, convinced man that an immortal spirit 
exists within him, which under favorable cir- 
cumstances, can converse with angels, who are 
nothing but progressed souls that at one time 
dwelt in a physical body. This is admitted 
often in the Bible, and by the greatest philoso- 
phers of antiquity; and if it could then exist, 
there is no reason why it cannot^ now, as the 
laws of nature never change. These spirits, or 
guardian angels, have often appeared to man 
and warned him of danger, and revealed the 
future to him, by touch, glance or word, as 
Ammonius tells us. Moreover, Lamprius and 
others held that if the unembodied spirits, or 
souls, could descend on earth and become 
guardians of mortal men, " we should not seek 
to deprive those souls which are still in the body 
of that power by which the former know future 
events and are able to announce them. It is 
not probable," adds Lamprius, "that the soul 
gains a new power of prophecy after separation 
from the body which it did not possess before." 
We may rather conclude it possessed all these 
powers during its union with the body, although 
in a lesser perfection. Like the sun it always 
shines bright and clear, but its rays are dimmed 
to us when it passes behind a cloud or is ob- 
scured by an eclipse; so it is with the soul when 
it is confined in the flesh. 

Yet some persons are so spiritual that they 
are able to hold converse with spirits and an- 
gels, by which means they are enabled to get 
a glimpse of the spirit world. Those disem- 
bodied spirits that have progressed and learned 
the laws of the spirit land, are more able to see 
and tell what the future results will be, as a man 
is better able to judge the future than an inex- 
perienced boy is; as knowledge of cause and 
effect will enable one to come at the result, as 
everything is governed by certain laws, and to 
understand these laws is only finding out the 



16 



secrets of nature that will enable man to use 
them and to advance himself in the search of 
truth, which is the ultimate end of all research. 



Akasa, or Life Force. 

It was Ammonius who first taught that every 
religion was based on one and the same truth, 
which is the wisdom found in the books of 
Thoth (Hermese Trismegistus), from which 
books Pythagoras and Plato had learned all 
their philosophy, and the doctrines of the for- 
mer he affirmed to have been identical with the 
earliest teachings of the Brahmans, now embod- 
ied in the old Vedas. "The name Thoth," 
says Professor Wilder, "means a college or 
assembly," and it is not improbable that the 
books were so named as being the collected 
oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal frater- 
nity of Memphis. Rabbi Wise had suggested 
a similar hypothesis in relation to the divine 
utterances recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. 
P>ut the Hindoo writers assert that during the 
reign of king Kansa Yadus the High Hiero- 
phant alone knew how to perform the solemn 
operation of infusing his ow-n vital and astral 
soul into the adept chosen by him for his suc- 
cessor, who thus became endowed with a 
double life. 

Mrs. Britten, in her "Ghost Land," gives a 
strange account how this mystical operation of 
the adept to transfer his spiritual entity after the 
death of his body into the youth he loves with 
all the ardent love of a spiritual parent, and 
how he used the organism of the boy in sending 
his astral soul to different places and to do cer- 
tain things; all of which is startling, and to the 
uninitiated it sounds like the wildest romance, 
destitute of truth and in violation of our senses. 

" In the remotest ages there has existed a 
mysterious, awful science, under the name of 
Theopcea. This science taught the art of en- 
dowing the various symbols of the gods with 
temporary life and intelligence. Statues and 
blocks of inert matter became animated un- 
der the potential will of the hierophant. The 
fire stolen by Prometheus had fallen down in 
the struggle to earth; it embraced the lower 
regions of the sky, and settled in the waves of 
the universal ether, as the potential Akasa of 
the Hindoo rites. We breathe and imbibe it 
into our organic system at every inhalation. 



But it becomes potential only under the influx 
of will and spirit. Left to itself this life-princi- 
ple will blindly follow the laws of nature, and, 
according to conditions, will produce health 
and exuberance of life, or cause death and dis- 
solution when withdrawn; but guided by the 
will of the adept, it becomes obedient; its cur- 
rents restore the equilibrium in organic bodies; 
they 641 the waste and produce physical and 
psychological miracles well know^n to mesmer- 
izers. Infused into inorganic and inert matter, 
they create an appearance of life, hence motion. 
If to the life an individual intelligence, a per- 
sonality, is wanting, then the operator must 
either send his scin-lecca, his own astral spirit, 
to animate it, or use his power over the region 
of native-spirits to force one of them to infuse his 
entity into the marble, wood or metal; or again 
be helped by human spirits. 

The good spirits will not infuse their essence 
into these inanimate objects. They leave it to 
the lower kinds to produce the similitude of 
life, animation and materialization. They send 
their influence through the intervening spheres 
like a ray of divine light, when the so-called 
miracle is required for a good purpose. The 
condition — and this is a law of spiritual nature 
— is purity of motive, purity of the surround- 
ing magnetic atmosphere, and personal purity 
of the operator. Thus it is that a pagan mir- 
acle may be performad by a fakir of South In- 
dia. A naked beggar crouched on the floor, 
with no assistance but his magic power, will so 
command these hidden forces of nature as to 
move furniture in the remotest part of the room, 
even the chair or sofa you may be sitting on; 
the doors to open or shut, the candle to go out, 
birds, flames, the forms of men, women and 
animals to flit before your vision in broad day- 
light, and many other things too strange and 
incredible to mention. 

The power to move statues and tables is not 
confined to the ancients, but the nineteenth 
century is full of such incidents, if we are to 
believe what man and the papers say. In the 
summer of 1876, the French papers gave an ac- 
count of the capers performed by the statue of 
the Madonna of Lourde^. This gracious lady, 
says the sexton, has run off into the woods several 
times, and he was forced to hunt her up and 
bring her home. After this began a series of 



1 



miracles, healing, prophesying, letters dropping 
from on high, and many other strange manifest- 
ations. These miracles are implicitly accepted 
by millions and millions of Catholics, many of 
them being of the most intelligent and educated 
classes. Then why should we disbelieve the 
statements given by the ancient historians ? 
Titus and Livy say that when the statue of Juno 
was asked if she \^ as willing " to abandon the 
walls of Veii and change her abode to that of 
Rome," consented by nodding her head and 
answering, " Yes, I will." And, says the his- 
torian, "Furthermore, upon carrying off the 
figure, it seemed instantly to lose its immense 
weight^'' and he adds, " the statue seemed rather 
to follow than otherwise." (Tite-Livy, v. dec. i,) 

Des Mousseau, a devout Catholic writer, 
gives many instances of statues of saints and 
madonnas walking and moving about. He 
admits that magic can do the same, but that 
Christianity can beat it; that one is the work of 
God, while the other is the doings of the devil; 
and says: "The Holy Roman Catholic and 
Apostolic Church declares the miracles wrought 
by the faithful sons are produced by the will of 
God, and all others the work of the spirits of 
hell." 

The ancients animated statues, and the Her- 
mitists called into being, out of the elements, 
the shapes of salamanders, gnomes, undines 
and sylphs, which they did not pretend to cre- 
ate, but simply to make visible by holding open 
the door of nature, so that under favoring con- 
ditions they might step into view. And if the 
Bible can be taken as authority, " Aaron threw 
down his rod and it became a serpent. Then 
Pharaoh also called his wise men and sorcerers; 
now the magicians of Egypt they did also in 
like manner, * * and they became serpents, 
but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods," 
Aaron by a wave of his rod brought forth frogs, 
and the magicians did the same; so that the, 
magicians could do almost all things that Aaron 
did: yet Aaron could excel, and Pharaoh con- 
cluded that the best thing he could do was to 
let the children of Israel go. 

Now these manifestations of power do not 
exceed what the magicians and fakirs claim to 
do and have often done in the presence of the 
most reliable and skillful scientific Europeans, 
and they have been unable to detect any fraud 



or delusion; so it is reasonable to suppose that 
if the ancient magicians of Egypt could perform 
these wonderful feats, they could be done now 
under favorable circumstances, and that this 
secret is claimed by the Hindoos to be the same 
art that has been known in India for thousands 
of years. 

The Hindoo adepts claim to possess the power 
of controlling the akasa (or life-principle), by 
means of which they are able to kill a person 
and bring him to life, by directing a current of 
this akasa upon the wound and healing it. 

The performance of the fakirs are wonderful 
and defy all detection of trickery. They have 
been known to be buried alive and grain sown 
upon the grave, and in thirty days were dug up 
alive. They will inflict mortal wounds and 
exhibit their bowels to persons present, and 
then heal the wounds immediately. Some of 
these fakirs exhibited their marvelous power to 
the Prince of Wales when in India. One of 
the fakirs gave one of his company a vessel to 
hold; it soon turned to a cobra, a most poisonous 
serpent, and it was examined and found to be 
alive and had fangs. If it had bitten any one, 
it would have been instant death. They gave 
some mango seed to the prince to be selected 
by him. It was then placed in a pot of earth; 
in a few moments it came up, put forth leaves, 
buds and blossoms, and in about four minutes 
matured fruit that was pronounced by all pres- 
ent to be a fresh mango. 

The same thing was done, in the presence ot 
Dr. J. M. Peebles, in the open air; of which he 
gives an account, during his travels in India. 
Almost any traveler in that country will cor- 
roborate this statement. 



Wonder- Workers of India. 
Fakirs can be buried for months, as has been 
testified by English officers — Lord Napier, 
Captain Osborne and Sir Claude Wade. Cap- 
tain Osborne says he " saw one of the fakirs 
buried for six weeks beneath my floor, and to 
prevent any chance of deception a guard of four 
soldiers was detailed to w^atch day and night to 
see there was no deception." " On opening 
it," says Sir Claude, " we saw a figure enclosed 
in a bag of white linen fastened by a string over 
the head. * * * xhe servant then began 
pouring warm water over the figure. * * * 



18 



The legs and arms of the body were shriveled 
and stiff, the face full, the head resting on the 
shoulders like a corpse. I then called the med- 
ical man who was attending me to come down 
and inspect the body, which he did but could 
discover no pulsation in the heart, the temples 
or the arms. There was, however, a keaf about 
the region of the /?ram, but no other part of the 
body exhibited any. The body was then taken 
and placed in a warm bath, friction was applied, 
the removal of wax and cotton pledgets fiom 
the nostrils and ears, the rubbing of the eyelids 
with ghee and clarified honey. Then they ap- 
plied a hot cohesive cake of bread to the top 
of his head, x^fter three applications of the 
hot cake to his head, the body was convulsed, 
the nostrils inflated and respiration begun, the 
limbs assumed a natural fullness, the pulsation 
was only perceptible. The tongue was anointed 
with ghee, and unrolled where the end had been 
placed in the gullet to prevent any air entering 
the stomach; the eyeballs became dilated and 
recovered their natural color, and the fakir rec- 
ognized those present and spoke." 

This plugging up process was done to keep 
the air from entering upon the organic tissues 
of the body and prevented decomposition, so 
that he was hermetically sealed up. Now if 
the fakirs can suspend life in this way and then 
restore animation, why should not we give cre- 
dence to the fact as stated of Jesus Christ res- 
urrecting Lazarus ? and that of Appolonius who 
restored to life a girl ? and that one mentioned 
by Diogenes Laertius restored to life by Em- 
pedocles ? Yet these were pagans and are dis- 
carded, while that of Christ is alone believed 
to be true. The prodigies of Jesus and Appo- 
lonius are so well attested that they appear au- 
thentic. Whether in either or both cases life 
was simply suspended or not, the important 
fact remains that by some power peculiar to 
themselves, both the wonder-workers recalled 
the seemingly dead to life in an instant. The 
books are full of instances where people have 
been buried or nearly committed to the tomb 
who were only in a cataleptic state. 

The many strange stories told by travelers in 
the East would fill volumes. One given to a 
delegation of the East India Company is thus 
related : " A lot of Englishmen who visited the 
Indian prince Jehangire, saw two tents erected 



about a bow-shot apart. Then the fakir asked 
the guests what kind of animals they wished to 
see fight ? One said, ' Ostriches.' At a signal 
given out stalked a couple of those birds, one 
from each tent which they had seen erected 
with nothing in them ; they fought some time, 
the blood ran down their necks where they had 
bitten each other. They returned, at a given 
word, to the tents. Then another of the com- 
pany called for a lion fight. Out of each tent 
walked a lion ; after rolling over and biting one 
another, roaring and tearing up the ground, 
they retired at a given word. Then out came 
two wild buffaloes, and they had a pitched bat- 
tle. All this was done in the presence of the 
whole court. These Bengalese conjurers and 
jugglers then took ten mulberry seeds, which 
they planted in the earth. In a few minutes 
they produced ten trees. The ground parted, 
the sprouts came up, pushing out leaves, twigs 
and branches, spreading wide out in the air, 
budding, blossoming and yielding fruit which 
matured on the spot, which they tasted and 
pronounced good. Figs, almond, mango and 
walnut were planted ; they likewise grew^ up 
rapidly before their eyes. The branches of 
these trees were filled with birds of the richest 
plumage, flitting among the leaves and singing 
sweet notes. The leaves then turned russet, 
fell off, branches and twigs withered, and finally 
the trunks sank back into the earth. It all 
transpired in less than an hour. 

''A large cauldron was then produced, and 
a quantity of rice was thrown into it. Without 
the least sign of fire it began to boil, and out of 
this cauldron were taken hundreds of plates of 
cooked rice, with a stewed fowl on the top of 
each." This trick is performed on a smaller 
scale by the most ordinary fakirs of the present 
day in India. This was equal to that of Christ 
feeding the multitude on a few loaves and fishes. 

In the memoirs of the emperor Jehangire 
(page 99), there is a strange account given by 
an eye-witness: *'The performance of the 
seven jugglers of Bengal. They took a man 
and chopped each limb off and severed his head 
from the body. They scattered the mutilated 
members around on the ground for some time; 
they then threw a sheet over them, and one of 
the jugglers crept under it. In a few moments 
he came out, followed by the mutilated man 



19 



that a few moments before had been cut all to 
pieces. They then took a chain," says the 
writer, " some fifty cubits long, and threw one 
end up until it went out of sight, and then it 
remained suspended in the air. A dog was 
then produced, placed at the lower end of the 
chain, when he ran up it out of sight. Next 
was a hog, a lion and a tiger, ail did the same 
thing." 

Another account of a fakir, given in the 
Franco-American/\?>2i^^?.^ oi this: "He took 
a peg and drove into the ground, threw up a 
ball with a cord attached, which went out of 
sight ; he then sent up a boy, and as he did not 
return he said he vvould go after him. Soon 
down came a hand of the boy, then a leg, then 
the body all bloody, then came the head; pres- 
ently down came the juggler with a bloody knife 
in his hand. He picked up the different parts 
of the boy and threw them into a basket, when 
out jumped the boy and ran off." 

They are known to plant the hilts of their 
sharp swords in the ground, then lay down on 
the points, while one by one these swords were 
ren:ioved until he lay in the air without any sup- 
port; and an Englishman says he took a stick 
and felt under the body and could find no sup- 
port. Says Colonel Yule: " They will stick a 
live pig to a rock so it can't get away, restore 
the dead to life, catch wild beasts with their 
hands, read thoughts, make water flow back- 
ward, eat tiles, sit in the midair, etc." An old 
legend ascribed to Simon Magus precisely the 
same power: " He made statues to walk, leaped 
into the fire without being burned, flew in the 
air, made bread of stones, changed his shape, 
assumed two faces at once, converted himself 
into a pillar, caused doors to open at will," etc. 

Origen writes that the Brahmans always were 
famous for their wonderful cures, which they 
performed by the utterance of certain words; 
and the present travelers in India say it is still 
practiced, and that upon pronouncing a certain 
word or sentence they are able to perform won- 
derful tricks. Some will walk barefooted on 
red, burning coals, on the points of sharp knives 
stuck in the ground, stand posed on the big toe 
on the point of one of them, and lift up another 
man from off the ground. I have seen a Jap- 
anese juggler do the same, ascend a ladder 
bare-footed the rounds of which were very sharp 



swords. I have also seen an East India negro, 
called the "Fire King," walk on hot bars of 
iron, take and bend them under his foot and 
up around his leg; the outer skin would smoke 
and fry a little, but "It did not produce appa- 
rently any pain. He took his finger and stirred 
up a ladle of molten lead, then took a table- 
spoonful of the melted lead and put it into his 
mouth, and then spat it out on the floor, which 
I undertook to pick up but got my fingers 
burned. He also took a dish of alcohol, put a 
lot of tow in it, stirred it up and set it on fire, 
took a fork and began to eat it, the blaze rising 
up over his head. After chewing it awhile, the 
fire blazing out whenever he opened his mouth, 
then spitting it out on the floor it burned the 
wood. He blew the flames out of his mouth 
on my hand, and it burned it and singed the 
hair. All of this w-as done in broad daylight, 
within a few feet of myself and hundreds of 
others. He would stick his hands into the fur- 
nace, take up a coal of fire and light his pipe. I 
examined his hands and feet; there appeared to 
be no foreign substance on them, but the outer 
skin appeared a little parched and discolored. 
There was no one present who did not believe 
that what he did was genuine, as several like 
myself got their fingers burned in testing it. 
He said that he v/ould not mind to walk into 
the hottest furnaces, like that spoken of in the 
Bible where the Hebrew children walked 
through the fiery furnace, and from appearan- 
ces he might have done it. 

In Siam, Japan and Great Tartary, it is the 
custom to make medallions, statuets and idols 
out of the ashes of cremated persons. They 
are mixed with water into a paste, and after 
being molded into any desired shape, are baked 
and then gilded and kept as household gods. 
The cremation is done to facilitate the with- 
drawal of the astral soul, which lingers more or 
less until the bones are decomposed, and there- 
fore they cremate the bodies of their departed 
friends, and fearing that the astral soul might 
remam satisfied for an indefinite period within 
the ashes, they resort to the following process: 
"The sacred dust is placed in a heap upon a 
metallic plate strongly magnetized, of the size 
of a man's body. The adept then slowly and 
gently fans it with a peculiar fan, and at the 
same time making signs and muttering a form 



20 



of invocation. The ashes then begin to move 
and assume the outlines of the body before cre- 
mation. Then there gradually arises a sort of 
whitish vapor, which after a time forms into an 
erect column, and compacting itself is finally 
transformed into the ' double ' or ethereal astral 
counterpart of the dead, which in its turn dis- 
solves away into the air and disappears from 
mortal sight." This accounts for the Hindoos 
preferring cremation, as it sets the astral body 
free from the earthly remains, around which it 
lingers until it dissolves back into its original 
elements. 

This wonderful power has existed in all ages 
of the world in some phase or other, to illumin- 
ate dark and benighted man, to elevate Lim 
and cause him to look up to a higher and bet- 
ter life to come. History, sacred and profane, 
is full of it. Whether it came from natural- 
born mediums, or learned by association with 
those versed in the occult sciences of the Ori- 
ental world, where it has been known from time 
immemorial and sacredly guarded by the Brah- 
mans, Buddhists, fakirs, the ancient Egyp- 
tians, heliophants, with whom Moses learned 
the art and introduced it among the Jews under 
the Order of the Kabalist, and out of which 
Freemasonry has sprung, as Solomon sent his 
ships to Ophir for gold and frankincense, myrrh 
and pea-feathers, which land was no doubt 
India. 

In India, Malabar, and some places in Cen- 
tral Africa, the conjurers will let a person fire 
his own musket or revolver at them without 
ever touching or interfering in loading it. 
Laing, in his travels, gives an instance of it. 
Salvert gives a similar instance in his Philoso- 
phy of Occult Sciences. In 1568 the Prince of 
Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be 
shot at Juliers. The soldier was tied to a tree 
and shot at by a file of soldiers, but the balls 
took no effect. It was supposed that he had a 
coat of armor on; he was stripped; they found 
he only had an amulet on, which was taken off. 
Then he was fired at and fell dead. Not many 
years ago there lived in Abyssinia a sorcerer 
who would let the European travelers fire at 
him with their own guns loaded by them vvith 
their own balls, for a trifle. At last they offered 
him five francs to let them place the muzzle of 
the gun next to the body. After consulting the 



spirits by placing his ear to the ground, he con- 
sented. The gun bursted and the conjurer was 
unhurt. An Indian said that Washington was 
not to be killed by a bullet, as he had fired at 
him seventeen times within short range without 
ever touching him at Braddock's defeat; and it 
is remarkable that he never was wounded dur- 
ing the whole of his life, yet he was often in 
the thickest of the fight. In fact many great 
generals have been believed by their soldiers to 
have a " charm.ed life." Prince Emile von 
Sayne-Wittgenstein, of the Russian army, is 
said to be one possessed of a charmed life. 

There are persons who have the power to 
psychologize birds and kill them by will power. 
Jacques Pelessier, in the province of Le Var, 
France, in 1864, made his living by catching 
and killing birds by his will power, which was 
thoroughly tested by men of science. Fourteen 
birds were taken in this way in one hour; none 
could resist his power. By stretching out his 
hand towards them they became pov;erless. It 
at once put them into a cataleptic sleep, and 
the phenomena proved to be a magnetic action. 
But his power was confined to sparrows, robins, 
goldfinches and meadow larks, and he could 
not charm other birds. 

There are persons in India and Africa that 
can charm snakes, crocodiles, and wild animals 
like the tiger, which have been known to go up 
and lick the hands of a fakir when asleep in the 
jungles, and not injure him. 

The Buddhists claim that the spirit of Buddha 
becomes reincarnated in the flesh after death, 
so that he ever lives, passing from out the old 
body at death and entering into that of a young 
child. The scene of the reincarnation is given 
by a Florentine scientist, who visited Thibet in 
the early part of this century, having been per- 
mitted to penetrate in disguise to the hallowed 
precincts of a Buddhist temple, where the most 
solemn of all ceremonies takes place, which are 
shut out from the gaze of the uninitiated. 
" An altar is ready in the temple to receive the 
resuscitated Buddha found by the initiated 
priesthood, and recognized by certain secret 
signs to have reincarnated himself in a new- 
born infant. The baby, but a few days old,. 
is brought into the presence of the people and 
reverentially placed upon the altar. Suddenly 
rising into a sitting posture, the child begins to 



21 



utter, in a loud, manly voice, the following 
sentences: * I am Buddha; I am his spirit, and 
I, Buddha, your Dolai Lama, have left my old 
decrepid body, at the temple of * * * and 
selected the body of this young babe as my next 
earthly dwelling." He says he was permitted 
by the priests to take the baby in his arms and 
carry it off some distance, so as to satisfy him- 
self that it was no trick of the ventriloquist. 
The infant opened his eyes and gave him such 
a look that it made his flesh creep, and repeated 
the same words, so there could be no mistake 
about it. 

This account is confirmed by Abbe Hue, a 
celebrated Catholic priest who traveled through 
this country, and he further states that the child 
answers questions and tells those who knew him 
in " his past life the most exact details of his 
anterior earthly existence." But he was un- 
frocked by the church because he was sincere 
and stuck to the truth of the assertion. 

But this is not the only instance of babies 
speaking. Jacques Dubois gives an account of 
the Camissard prophets in 1707, among whom 
was a boy fifteen months old, who spoke in good 
French " as though God were speaking through 
his mouth;" and there are the Cevennes babies 
whose speaking and prophesying were witnessed 
by the first savans of France, which has passed 
into history uncontradicted. Lloyd's Weekly 
Newspaphr for March, 1875, contains an ac- 
count of the following phenomena: " At Saar- 
Louis, France, a child was born; the mother 
had just been delivered, and the midwife was 
holding the child in her hands, when some one 
asked what was the hour. To the astonishment 
of all present the new-born babe replied dis- 
tinctly, 'Two o'clock.' While they all were 
looking at the infant in speechless wonder and 
dismay, it opened its eyes and said: 'I have 
been sent into the world to tell you that 1875 
will be a good year, but that 1876 wnll be a year 
of blood.' Having uttered this prophecy it 
turned on its side and expired, aged half an 
hour." The truth of this prophecy is too late to 
admit of a comment, as 1875 was a year of great 
plenty, and 1876 one of bloody scenes on the 
Danube, between the Turks and Russians, un- 
paralleled except in the butchery of the Indians 
in North and South America, and the wading 
in blood of the English to the throne of Delhi. 



There are many instances of the precocity of 
children, but I will only relate one more, that 
of a child of H. D. Jencken, M. R. L, barris- 
ter at law, London, whose mother was the fa- 
mous Kate Fox, of Rochester rapping notoriety. 
When the child was only three months old, it 
showed evidence of mediumship by raps on the 
pillow and cradle, and when five months old 
wrote a communication of twenty words. 

Prophecy can only be explained by spirits 
impressing the person, as spirits of higher intel- 
ligence are able to combine causes and effects 
and can tell more readily what the result will 
be than a man; so can a man foretell events 
better than a child; and in this obscure way 
certain persons in a peculiar state may have 
visions and get a glimpse into the future. But 
spirits, like men, are limited in their knowledge, 
and some know more than others; so it depends 
on the source and the knowledge of the spirit. 
The Bible and history are full of prophecy. 
Much of it has been fulfilled, and much of it 
has not. Governor Talmadge gives an account 
of how a distinguished citizen's life was saved 
on board of the United States war ship Prince- 
ton, by a premonition. Rev. Dr. Wilson, of 
Allegheny City, prophecied the great fire of 
1845 in Pittsburg, the Mexican war and its 
results, the war between Russia and the West- 
ern powers, and the speedy limitation of the 
temporal power of the Pope. 

Napoleon, while an exile on the island of St. 
Helena, made the following prediction about 
the United States: " Ere the close of the nine- 
teenth century, America will be convulsed with 
one of the greatest revolutions the world has 
ever witnessed. Should it succeed, her power 
and prestige are lost; but should the Govern- 
ment maintain her supremacy, she will be on a 
firmer basis than ever. The theory of a repub- 
lican form of government will be established, 
and she will defy the world." History gives 
us prophecies of Hannibal and Napoleon, 
which were fulfilled. Whether old Mother 
Shipley's prophecy will come true remains to be 
seen; yet much of it has come to pass, but the 
world did not end in 1882. 

How the spirits arrive at these facts is un- 
known; yet they may, like the astronomer who 
by calculation is able to tell when an eclipse of 
the sun or moon will take place for hundreds 



22 



of years to come. To the ignorant this appears 
to be impossible. The truth of science, of 
all knowledge, is to afford facilities to predict 
the unknown, and judge the future by the past 
— the cause and effect — will produce certain re- 
sults if their relation is properly understood. 
But there is much depending on the environ- 
ments, and these are forever changing, so that 
it is impossible for even the most advanced 
minds to see all that may happen or change the 
course of things and events. So long as knowl- 
edge is limited, so long will prophecies prove 
failures. 



Destiny. 
''Man, therefore, to a certain extent, is a be- 
ing of destiny, which is ever weaving thread by 
thread around himself, as a spider does his cob- 
web; and this destiny is guided either by that 
presence termed by some the guardian angel, 
or more intimate astral inner man, who is too 
often the evil genius of the man of flesh. But 
these lead on the outward man, but one of them 
must prevail, and from the very beginning of 
the invisible affray the stern implacable law of 
compensation steps in and takes its course, fol- 
lowing faithfully the fluctuations. When the last 
strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrap- 
ped in the network of his own doing, then he 
finds himself completely under the empire of 
his s^lf-made destiny. It then either fixes him 
like the inert shell of an oyster against the im- 
movable rock, or like a feather carries him 
away in a whirlwind raised by his own actions." 



An Occult Fraternity. 
"There is an occult fraternity which has ex- 
isted from very ancient times, having a hierarchy 
of officers, secret signs and passwords, and a 
peculiar method of instruction in science, reli- 
gion and philosophy. If we may believe those 
w^ho at present profess to, belong to it, the phi- 
losopher's stone, the elixir of life, the art of 
invisibility, and the power of communicating 
directly with the ultra-mundane life, are a part 
of the inheritance they possess." These adepts 
are of a limited number, seldom remain long in 
any place, but leave without creating notice. 
They all appear to be men from forty to fifty 
years old, possessed of vast erudition, and can 
speak in many tongues. They are men of mod- 



erate means, caring little for wealth, yet always 
have enough to supply their wants. They live 
pure and blameless; lives, are austere in manners 
and almost ascetic in their habits. 

There is a mystical fraternity now established 
in the United States, which claims an intimate 
relationship with one of the oldest and most 
powerful of Eastern Brotherhoods. It is known 
as the Brotherhood of Tuxor. It has many 
faithful members widely scattered throughout 
the West. They have many important secrets 
of science which they guard with great jealousy, 
but which they are willing to impart to man 
when he has advanced enough to receive them. 
No one can become a member unless he be a 
person endowed with certain intellectual gifts 
by birth. No position, rank or money can pro- 
cure a membership. Nature places the stamp 
by which they are recognized. Its officers and 
records are kept in the spirit world, who impart 
to the initiate whatever knowledge they see 
proper to confer. They never mistake a person 
nor his fidelity to keep a secret. 

We have a very interesting account of one of 
these adepts in the strange and interesting work 
of Emma Harding Britten, " The Ghost Land 
or Occultism," who, she says, wrote the " Art 
Magi," which she had published; and if the 
statement therein made be true, it is stranger 
than fiction, and well may one exclaini in the 
language of Hamlet: "There are more things 
in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed 
of in your philosophy." 

These adepts hold their conclaves in an en- 
chanted cave in India, where invisible spirits 
reveal themselves to the adept and mingle to- 
gether in the human form. They perform won- 
ders that no mortal can understand. They 
introduce the adept by passing through under- 
ground passages, where rocks part to admit their 
ingress and egress. The cavern is lit up by a 
lumjnous light that radiates from their heads; 
the w^alls reflect this light like thousands of dia- 
monds and crystals. The spirits flit hither and 
thither. The brain of the adept becomes be- 
wildered, and in a semi-conscious state he is led 
forth to the light of day, not knowing whence 
he came. 

Madame Blavatsky, Secretary of the Theo- 
sophical Society and author of " Isis Unvailed," 
has made wonderful progress in the occult sci- 



23 



ences, so that she has been able to send mes- 
sages to the adepts of Kashmir valley, hundreds 
of miles off, and receive answers without any 
visible means. The messages come, and are 
placed wherever she requests. i\t her com- 
mand the invisible power takes it and soon re- 
turns with the answer from some of the Yhebian 
brothers. Wherever she goes there are persons 
impressed to meet her with conveyance or mon- 
ey. She has traveled over India in company 
with Alcott, another adept. 

"The keys to the biblical miracles of old, 
and to the phenomena of modern days; the 
problems of psychology, physiology, and the 
many ' missing links' which have so perplexed 
scientists of late, are all in the hands of secret 
fraternities. This mystery must be unvailed 
some day. But till then dark skepticism will 
constantly interpose its threatening, ugly shad- 
ow between God's truths and the spiritual vision 
of mankind; and m.any are those who, infected 
by the moral epidemic of our century — hope- 
less materialism — will remain in doubt and mor- 
tal agony as to whether when man dies he will 
live again, although the question has been solved 
by long bygone generations of sages. The an- 
swers are there. They may be found m the 
time-worn granite pages of caves, temples, on 



sphinxes, propylons and obelisks. They have 
stood there for untold ages, and neither the 
rude assault of time, nor the still ruder assault 
of the hands of the religious fanatic, have suc- 
ceeded in obliterating the records — all covered 
with the problems which were solved — who can 
tell.? perhaps by the archaic forefathers of their 
builders. The solution follows each question, 
and this the Christian could not appropriate, 
for except the initiates no one has understood 
the mystic writings. The key was in the keep- 
ing of those who knew how to commune wdth 
the invisible Presence, and who had received, 
from the lips of Mother Nature herself, her 
grand truths. And so stands these monuments, 
like mute forgotten sentinels on the threshold 
of that unseen world, whose gates are thrown 
open but to a few elect. Defying the hand of 
time, the vain inquiry of profane science, the 
insults of revealed religion, they will disclose 
their riddles to none but the legatees of those 
by whom they were intrusted with the mystery. 
The cold stony lips of the once vocal Memnon, 
and these hardy sphinxes, keep their secrets 
well. Who will unseal them } Who of you 
modern materialistic dwarfs and unbelieving 
sadducees will dare to lift the Vail of 
Isis V 




CHABTER III. 



SOUL OF THE UNIVERSE. 

(anima mundi.) 



Ether— Psychomacy— Plato and St. Paul on the Triune, Body, Spirit and Soul— Transmigfration- 
Hindoo Idea of a Soul, its Oricfin and Destiny. 



The soul of the universe, the great magnetic 
agent which gives life to all things, is what Sir 
Isaac Newton calls the Divine Sensorum. It is, 
he says, "a very subtle spirit which penetrates 
through all things, even the hardest bodies, and 
is concealed in their substance. Through the 
strength and activity of this spirit bodies attract 
each other and adhere together when brought 
into contact. Through it electrical bodies op- 
erate at the remotest distance as Vv^ell as near at 
hand, attracting and repelling. Through this 
spirit the light also flows, and is refracted and 
reflected and warms bodies. All senses are 
excited by this spirit, and through it the ani- 
mals move their limbs. But these things can- 
not be explained in a few words, and we have 
not yet sufficient experience to determine fully 
the laws by which this universal spirit operates.'* 

It is an independent life-force that actuates 
and moves all things. The^ncient oracles as- 
serted that it was " ether that gave impressions 
of thoughts, characters and divine visions to 
men, by which they were able to read the past 
and the future; that this ether abounded through- 
out space in which all intelligence was regis- 
tered, and that the future existed in this astral 
light in embryo, as the present existed in em- 
bryo in the past. While man is free to act as 
he pleases, the manner in which he will act 
was foreknown from all time; not on the ground 
of fatalism or destiny, but simply on the prin- 
ciple of universal, unchangeable harmony, and 
as it may be foreknown that, when a musical 
note is struck, its vibration will not and cannot 
change into those of another note. Besides 
that, eternity can have neither past nor future, 
but only the present, as boundless space, in its 



strictly literal sense, can have neither distant 
nor proximate places, as there is no beginning 
and no end, so that we only catch the reflection 
of the past and a glimpse of the future. Pro- 
fessor Hitchcock says: "The human spirit, 
being of the Divine immortal spirit, appreciates 
neither past nor future, but sees all things as in 
the present." 

Professor J. W. Draper says: "A shadow 
never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon 
a permanent trace, a trace which might be made 
visible by applying the proper process. * * * 
The portraits of our friends, or landscape views, 
may be hidden upon the sensitive surface from 
the eye, but they are ready to make their ap- 
pearance as soon as a proper developer is resort- 
ed to. A specter is concealed on a silver or 
glassy surface, until by our necromancy we make 
it come forth into the visible world. Upon the 
walls of our most private apartments, where we 
think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, 
and our retirement can never be profaned, 
there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhou- 
ettes of what we have done," so that every 
thought, act and deed is registered to condemn 
or justify us when the mind is quickened in 
death, as is illustrated in the case of a drowning 
man, when all the long-forgotten scenes of his 
moral life flash across his memory. 

And it is a well-known fact that we often re- 
cognize familiar places, landscapes and faces 
that we have no recollection of ever having seen 
before. This is accounted for on the theory that 
the spirit has, in its wanderings while the body 
was wrapped in slumber, seen these faces and 
places. This gave rise to the idea of transmi- 
gration, that the soul had previously been in the 



25 



body of some one else; and this psychological 
phenomena is one of the strongest arguments in 
favor of the immortality of the soul. As Eli- 
phas Levi beautifully expresses it, "Nature 
shuts the door after everything that passes, and 
pushes life onward in more perfected forms." 
The chrysalis becomes a butterfly; but the latter 
never becomes a grub again. 

In the stillness of the night hours, when our 
bodily senses are fast locked in the fetters of 
sleep, and our physical body rests, the astral 
form becomes free. It then oozes out of its 
earthly prison, and, as Paracelsus has it, " con- 
fabulates with the outward world," and " travels 
round the visible as well as the invisible worlds." 

In sleep, he says, "the astral body (soul) is 
in freer motion; then it roams to its parents and 
holds converse with the stars. * * * The 
more the body is exhausted the freer is the spir- 
itual man, and the more vivid the impressions 
of our soul's memory." Dreams, forebodings, 
prognostications and presentiments are impres- 
sions left by our astral spirit on our brain, which 
receives them more or less distinctly according 
to the proportion of blood with which it is sup- 
plied during the hours of sleep. 

Heavy and robust persons, whose sleep is 
dreamless and uninterrupted, upon awaking to- 
ward consciousness, may sometimes remember 
nothing; but impressions of scenes and land- 
scapes which the astral body saw in its pere- 
grinations are still there, though lying latent 
under the pressure of matter. They may be 
awakened at any moment, and then, during 
such flashes of man's inner memory, there is an 
instantaneous interchange of energies between 
the visible and the invisible universes. Between 
the "micrographs" of the cerebral ganglion 
and the photo-scenographic galleries of the 
spirit a current is established. Like the audo- 
phone of Edison, it only needs the current es- 
tablished, and the words come forth through it. 
They may have been spoken years before and 
stored up. 

Blumenbach assures us that " in the state of 
sleep all intercourse between mind and body is 
suspended." " No man, however gross and 
material he may be, can avoid leading a double 
existence — one in the visible universe and the 
other in the invisible. The life-principle which 
animates his physical frame is chiefly in the 



spiritual body, and while the mere animal por- 
tions of him rest, the more spiritual ones know 
neither limits nor obstacles. * * * Some 
might object on the ground taken by theology, 
that dumb brutes have no immortal souls, and 
hence can have no spirits. Theologians, as 
laymen, labor under the erroneous impression 
that the soul and spirit are one and the same 
thing. But if we study Plato and other philos- 
ophers of old, we may readily perceive that 
w*hile the irrational soul — by which Plato meant 
our spiritual body or more ethereal representa- 
tive of ourselves — can have at best only a pro- 
longed continuity of existence beyond the grave, 
(which is only the body of the spirit.) 

The deeper the trance, the less signs of life 
the body shows, the clearer become the spirit- 
ual perceptions and more powerful is the soul's 
vision. The soul, disburdened of bodily senses, 
shows activity of power in a far greater degree 
of intensity than it can in a strong, healthy body. 
Brirre de Boismont gives repeated instances of 
this fact. 'The organs of sight, smell, taste, 
touch and hearing, are proved to become far 
acuter in a mesmerized subject deprived of the 
possibility of exercising them bodily, than while 
he uses them in his normal state." Such facts 
alone proved, ought to stand as invincible dem- 
onstrations of the continuity of individual life, 
at least for a certain period after the body has 
been left by us, either by reason of its being 
worn out or by accident. But during its brief 
sojourn on earth, our soul may be assimulated 
to a light hidden under a bushel; it still shines 
more or less bright, and attracts to itself the 
influences of kindred spirits, and when a thought 
of good or evil import is begotten in our brain, 
it draws to it impulses of like nature as irresist- 
ibly as a magnet attracts iron filings. This at- 
traction is also proportionate to the intensity 
with which the thought-impulse makes itself felt 
in \h^ ether; and so it will be understood how 
one man may impress himself upon his own 
epoch so forcibly that the influence may be 
carried — through the ever-interchanging cur- 
rents of the two worlds, the visible and invis- 
ible — from one succeeding age to another, 
until it affects a large portion of mankind. 

Regard it as you please, there can be no 
doubt that the properties of the ether are of a 
much higher order in the arena of nature than 



26 



those of tangible tiiatter, and as even the highest 
priests of science still find the latter far beyond 
their comprehension, except in numerous but 
minute and often isolated particles, it would not 
become us to speculate further. It is sufficient 
for our purpose to know, from what the ether 
certainly does, that /'/ is capable of doing vastly 
more than any has yet ventured to say" 

It may be what the Chaldean oracles call 
ether, for it states that from ether have come 
all things, and to it all will return; that the inv 
ages of all things are indelibly impressed upon 
it, and that it is the storehouse of the germs or 
of the remains of all visible forms and even 
ideas. 

Psychomancy. 

It may be to this subtile force that certain 
persons, by their sensitive touch against the 
forehead, are enabled to read names in a folded 
ballot, or the fragment of an ancient building 
recall its history and even the scenes which 
transpired in and about it. A bit of ore will 
carry the soul's vision back to the time when it 
was in process of formation. This faculty is 
called by its discoverer, Professor J. R. Bu- 
chanan, of Louisville, Kentucky, Psychomancy. 
He says, "The mental and physiological influ- 
ence imparted to writing appears to be imper- 
ishable. The specimens I have investigated 
give their impressions with a distinctness and 
force little impaired by time. Old manuscripts 
requiring an antiquary to decipher their strange 
old penmanship, were easily interpreted by the 
psychometric power. * * * ^p^g property 
of retaining the impress of mind is not limited 
to writing, drawing, painting. Everything upon 
which human contact, thought and volition 
have been expended, may become linked with 
that thought and life so as to recall them to the 
mind of another when in contact." 

Many tests have been made. A fragment of 
Cicero's house at Tusculum was given to the 
psychometer, who placed it to his forehead; he 
at once described, without the slightest knowl- 
edge where the fragment came from, the place 
and the surrounding of the great orator's home; 
also, the previous owner of the building, Cor- 
nelius Sulla Felix, the dictator, was described. 
** A fragment of marble from the ancient Chris- 
tian church of Smyrna brought before the psy- 



chometer its congregation and its officiating 
priests. Specimens from Nineveh, China, Je- 
rusalem, Greece, Ararat, and other places all 
over the world, brought up scenes in life of va- 
rious personages whose ashes had been scattered 
thousands of years ago. In many cases Profes- 
sor Denton verified the statements by reference 
to historical records. A bit of the skeleton or 
a fragment of the tooth of some ante-diluvian 
animal caused the seeress (who was blindfolded) 
to perceive the creature as it was when alive, 
and even gave a brief mention of its life and 
sensations. The psychometer, by applying the 
fragment of a substance to his forehead, brings 
his inner life into relations with the inner soul 
of the object he handles." 

Professor Denton says: " Not a leaf waves, 
not an insect crawls, not a ripple moves, but 
each motion is recorded by a thousand faithful 
scribes in infallible and indelible scripture. 
From the dawn of light upon this infant globe, 
when round its cradle the starry curtains hung, 
to this moment, nature has been busy photo- 
graphing everything;" so when the psychometer 
examines his specimen he is brought into con- 
tact with the current of astral light connected 
with that specimen, and which retains pictures 
of the event associated with with its history. 
These, according to Professor Denton, pass be- 
fore his vision with the swiftness of light, scene 
aftei scene crowding upon each other so rapidly 
that it is only by the superior exercise of will 
that he is able to hold any one in the field of 
vision long enough to describe it. 

The psychometer is clairvoyant, that is, he 
sees with the inner eye (of the soul.) Unless 
his will-power is strong enough, and he be thor- 
oughly trained to that particular phenomena, 
and his knowledge of the capabilities of his 
sight is profound, his perception of places, per- 
sons and events must necessarily be confused. 
But in case of mesmerization, in which this same 
clairvoyant faculty is developed, the operator, 
whose will holds that of the subject under con- 
trol, can force him to concentrate his attention 
upon a given picture long enough to observe all 
its minute details. 

There are two kinds of magnetizations. The 
first is purely animal; the other transcendant 
and depending on the will and knowledge of 
the mesmerizer, as well as on the degree of spir- 



27 



ituality of the subject and his capacity to receive 
the impression of the astral light. But now it 
is next to ascertain that clairvoyance depends 
a great deal more on the former than on the 
latter. To the power of an adept, like Du 
Potet, the most positive subject has to submit. 
If his sight is ably directed by the mesmerizer, 
magician or spirit, the light must yield up its 
most sacred records to our scrutiny; for it is a 
book which is ever closed to those *' who see 
and do not perceive;" on the other hand, it is 
ever open for one who wills to see it opened. 
It keeps an unmutilated record of all that was, 
that is, or ever will be. The minutest acts of 
our lives are imprinted on it, and even our very 
thoughts rest photographed on its eternal tablets. 
It is the book which we see opened by the an- 
gel in the " Revelations," which is the book of 
life, out of which the dead are judged " accord- 
ing to their works." It is, in short, the memory 
of God. 

Soul. 

Plato, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, and the Ele- 
atic schools of Greece, as well as the old Chal- 
dean sacerdotal colleges, all taught the doctrine 
of the dual evolution; the transmigration of 
souls referring only to the progress of man from 
world to world after death here. Every philos- 
opher worthy of the name taught that the spirit 
of man, if not the soul, was pre-existent. '* The 
Essenes," says Josephus, *' believed that souls 
were immortal, and that they descended from 
ethereal space to be chained to bodies." Philo 
Judaeus says, '' the air is full of them (of souls); 
those which are nearest the earth descending to 
be tied to mortal bodies, and return to other 
bodies, being desirous to live in them." Noth- 
ing is eternal and unchangeable save the con- 
cealed Deity. Everything else must either pro- 
gress or recede; it cannot remain stationary. 

A spirit which thirsts after a reunion with its 
soul, which alone confers upon it immortality, 
must purify itself through cyclic transmigrations 
onward toward the land of bliss and eternal 
rest." According to the Sohar, all souls are 
dual, and while the latter is a feminine princi- 
ple, the spirit is masculine; that the soul could 
not bear this light but for the luminous mantle 
which she puts on; for just as the soul, when 
sent to this earth, puts on an earthly garment 



to present herself here, so she receives above a 
shining garment, in order to be able to look, 
without injury, into the mirror, whose light pro- 
ceeds from the Lord of light. While imprisoned 
in the body a man is a trinity, unless his pollu- 
tion is such as to have caused his divorce from 
the soul, which may desert the spirit for the 
crimes and wickedness done when in the body. 
*' Woe to the spirit which prefers to her divine 
husband (soul) the earthly wedlock with her 
terrestrial body." 

''All souls which have alienated themselves 
in heaven from the Holy One, have thrown 
themselves into an abyss, at their very existence, 
and have anticipated the time when they are to 
descend on earth. * * It carries a spark of 
the Divine Mind to guide and direct it back to 
God. It becomes incarnated in the flesh, and 
thereby it forms for itself an individual exist- 
ence, to reason and think for itself, which indi- 
viduality it ever retains, its intelligence rising 
and progressing through countless aeons, periods 
and cycles, from sphere to sphere, until at last 
it returns to the bosom of the Divine Mind, 
whence it came. All the animal soul must of 
course be disintegrated of its particles before it 
is able to link its pure essence forever with the 
Immortal Spirit. 

St. Paul makes man a trine — flesh, psychical 
existence or spirit, and the overshadowing and 
at the same time interior entity or soul. He 
maintains that there is a physical body which is 
sown in the corruptible, and a spiritual body 
that is raised in incorruptible substance. '* The 
first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man 
from heaven." Plato, speaking of the soul 
(psuche), observes that " when she allies herself 
to nous (divine substance, a god, as psuche as a 
goddess), she does everything aright and felicit- 
ously; but the case is otherwise when she 
attaches herself to annoia." What Plato calls 
nous, Paul terms the spirit; and Jesus makes the 
heart what Paul calls the flesh. Pythagoras 
makes the soul a self-moving unit, with three 
elements: the vous, the phren, and the thumos; 
the two latter shared with brutes, the former 
only being his essential self. Whether Pythag- 
oras borrowed it from Buddha or Buddha from 
somebody else it matters not; the esoteric doc- 
trine is the same. 

" Socrates thought that he had a demon, a spir- 



28 



itual something, which put him on the road to 
wisdom. He himself knew nothing, but this 
put him in the way to learn all." This shows 
that he was what is now called a clairaudent 
medium, speaking from knowledge from within. 
So was Plato when he said " there was an yiga- 
thon (Supreme God), who produced in his own 
mind a paradeigma of all things." He taught 
that in man has " the immortal principle of the 
soul," a mortal body, and a separate mortal 
kind of soul, which was placed in a separate 
receptacle of the body from the other! The 
immortal part was in the head {Timceus, xix, 
xx), the other in the trunk. 

*' Plato and Pythagoras," says Plutarch, 
"distribute the soul into two parts, the rational 
(noetic) 2indt\\t\xx2i\.ion2i\(agnoia.) That part 
of the soul of man which is rational is eternal; 
for though it be not God, yet it is the product 
of an eternal Deity; but that part of the soul 
which is divested of reason (agnoia) dies." 

" Man," says Plutarch, " is compound; and 
they are mistaken who think him to be com- 
pounded of two parts only; for they imagine 
that the understanding is a part of the soul; but 
they err in this no less than those who make the 
soul to be a part of the body, for the under- 
standing (nous), which as far exceeds the soul 
as the soul is better and diviner than the body. 
Now this composition of soul (vous) with the 
understanding (nous) makes reason; and with the 
body passion; of which one is the beginning of 
the principle of pleasure and pain, and the other 
of virtue and vice. Of these three parts, con- 
joined and compacted together, the eartii has 
given the body, the moon the soul, and the sun 
the understanding of the generation of man." 

" The dcemonium of Socrates was this vous 
mind, spirit or understanding of the divine in it. 
This nous of Socrates," says Plutarch, " was 
pure, and mixed itself with the body no more 
than necessity required. * * * Every soul 
hath some portion of vous reason; a man cannot 
be a man without it; but as much of each soul 
as is mixed with flesh and appetite is changed, 
and through pain or pleasure becomes irrational. 
Every soul doth not mix herself after one sort. 
Some plunge themselves into the body, and so 
in this life their whole frame is corrupted by 
appetite and passion; others are mixed as to 
some part. But the purer part (nous) still re- 



mains ivithout the body. It is not drawn down 
into the body, but swims above and touches 
(overshadows) the extremest part of the man's 
head. It is like a cord to hold up and direct 
the subsiding part of the soul, as long as it 
proves obedient and is not overcome by the 
appetites of the flesh. The part that is plunged 
into the body is called soul. But the incorrup- 
tible part is called the nous and the vulgar think 
it is within them, as they likewise imagine the 
image reflected from a glass to be in the glass. 
But the more intelligent, who know it to be 
without, call it a doi7?ion (a god or spirit)." 

" The soul, like to a dream, flies quick away, 
which it does not immediately as soon as it is 
separated from the body, but afterward when 
it is alone and divided from the understanding 
(nous) * * * The soul being molded and 
formed by the understanding (nous), and itself 
molding and forming the body by embracing it 
on every side, receives from it an impression 
and form; so that although it be separated both 
from the understanding and the body, it never- 
theless so retains still its figure and resemblance 
for a long time that it may with good right be 
called its image." 

Plato (in Laws X) defines soul as "the 
motion that is able to move icself. Soul is the 
most ancient of all things, and the commence- 
ment of motion. Soul was generated prior to 
body, and body is posterior and secondary, as 
being according to nature, ruled over by the 
ruling ''soul. The soul, which administers all 
things that move in every way, administers 
likewise the heavens. 

" Soul, then, leads everything in heaven and 
on earth and in the sea, by its movements, the 
names of which are, to will, to consider, to take 
care of, to consult, to form opinions true and 
false, to be in a state of joy, sorrow, confidence, 
fear, hate, love, together with all such primary 
movements as are allied to these. * * Being 
a goddess herself, she ever takes as an ally nous, 
a god, and disciplines all things correctly and 
happily. But when with an?wia, not nous, it 
works out everything the contrary." 

Pythagoras, Plato, Tim^eus of Locris, and 
the whole Alexandrian school, derived the soul 
from the Universal World Soul; and the latter 
was, according to their own teachings, ether 
— something of such a fine nature as only to be 



29 



perceived by our inner sight. Therefore it cannot 
be the essence of the monas or causey because 
the anima mundi is but the effect, the objective 
emanation, of the former. But the human 
spirit and soul are pre-existent; but while the 
former exists as a distinct entity, an individuali- 
zation, the soul exists as pre-existing matter, 
an unscient portion of an intelligent whole. 
Both were originally formed from the Eternal 
Ocean of Light; but, as the Theosophists ex- 
pressed it, there is a visible as well as invisible 
spirit. They made a difference between the 
anima bruia and the anima divina. 

Empedocles firmly believed all men and all 
animals to possess two souls; Aristotle, we 
find, calls one the reasoning soul (vois), and the 
other the animal soul (xvxg). According to 
these philosophers, the reasoning soul came 
from without the Universal Soul, and the other 
from within. This divine and superior region, 
in which they located the supreme Deity, was 
considered by them (by Aristotle himself) as a 
fifth element, purely spiritual and divine; where- 
as the anima mundi proper was considered as 
composed of a fine igneous and ethereal nature 
spread throughout the universe, in short, ether. 
The Stoics, the greatest materialists of ancient 
days, excepted the invisible God and Divine 
Soul (spirit) from any such a corporeal nature. 
Their modern commentators and admirers, 
greedily seizing the opportunity, built on this 
ground the supposition that the Stoics believed 
in neither God nor soul. But Epicurus, whose 
doctrine, militating directly against the agency 
of a Supreme Being and gods in the formation 
and government of the world, placed him far 
above the Stoics in atheism and materialism, 
taught, nevertheless, that the soul is of a fine, 
tender essence, formed from the smoothest, 
roundest and finest atoms, which description 
still brings us to the sublimated ether. Arns- 
bius, Tertullian, Irenaeus and Origen, notwith- 
standing their Christianity, believed, with the 
niore modern Spinoza and Hobbes, that the 
soul was corporeal though of a very fine nature, 
yet retained the form of the person while living, 
and could be so identified in the spirit world. 

As to the human spirit, the notions of the 
older philosophers and mediaeval Kabalists, 
while differing in some particulars, agreed in the 
whole, so that the doctrine of the one is the 



doctrine of the other. The most substantial 
difference consisted in the location of the im- 
mortal or divine spirit of man. While the an- 
cient Neoplatonists held that the Angocides 
never descended hypostatically into the living 
man, but only shed more or less its radiance on 
the inner man, the astral soul, the Kabalists of 
the middle ages maintained that the spirit, de- 
taching itself from the ocean of light and spirit, 
entered into man's soul, where it remained 
through life, imprisoned in the astral capsules. 
This difference was the result of the belief of 
Christian Kabalists, more or less, in the dead 
letter of the allegory of the fall of man. The 
soul, they said, became, through the fall of 
Adam, contaminated with the world of matter, 
or satan. Before it could appear with its in- 
closed divine spirit in the presence of the Eter- 
nal, it had to purify itself of the impurities of 
darkness. They compared the spirit imprisoned 
within the soul to a drop of water inclosed 
within a capsule of gelatine and thrown into the 
ocean; so long as the capsule remains whole 
the drop of water remains isolated; break the 
envelope and the drop becomes a part of the 
ocean — its individual existence has ceased. So 
it is with the spirit. As long as it is inclosed 
in its plastic mediator, or soul, it has an indi- 
vidual existence. Destroy the capsule, a result 
which may occur from the agonies of withered 
conscience, crime and moral disease, the spirit 
returns back to its original abode: its individu- 
ality is gone. 

On the other hand, the philosophers who ex- 
plained the * ' fall into generation " in their own 
way, viewed spirit as something wholly distinct 
from the soul. They allowed its presence in 
the astral capsule only so far as the spiritual 
emanation or rays of the ** shining one '* were 
concerned. Man and soul had to conquer 
their immortality by ascending toward the unity 
with which, if successful, they were kindly 
linked, and into which they were absorbed, so 
to say. The individualization of man after 
death depended on the spirit, not on the soul 
and body. Although the word " personality," 
in the sense in which it is usually understood, 
is an absurdity if applied literally to our immor- 
tal essence; still the latter is a distinct unity, 
immortal and natural /^r j^, and, as in the case 
of criminals beyond redemption, when the shin- 



30 



ing thread which links the spirit to the soul from 
the moment of the birth of a child, is violently 
snapped, and the disembodied entity is left to 
share the fate of the lower animals, to gradually 
dissolve into ether, and have its individuality 
annihilated, even then the spirit remains a dis- 
tinct being. It becomes a planetary spirit, an 
angel; for the gods of pagans or the archangels of 
Christians, the direct emanations of the First 
Cause, notwithstanding the hazardous statement 
of Swedenborg, never were or will be men on 
our planet at least; while the modern Spiritual- 
ist, like A. J. Davis and others, contend that a 
soul once born, ever following the law of pro- 
gress, goes on ever growing wiser and better 
until it ascends to the seventh heaven, when it 
has become perfectly divested of all impurity. 
This leads us back to the ancient doctrine of 
emanation and absorption; yet even then it may 
retain its individuality and a remembrance of 
the past. 

This speculation has been in all ages the 
stumbling block of metaphysicians. The whole 
esoterism of the Buddhistical philosophy is based 
on this mysterious teaching, understood by a 
few persons and so totally misunderstood by 
many of the most learned scholars. Even met- 
aphysicians are inclined to confound the ef- 
fect with the cause. A person may have won 
his immortal life and remain the same inner self 
he was on earth through eternity; but this does 
not imply necessarily that he must either remain 
the Mr. Brown or Mr. Smith he was on earth or 
lose his individuality. Therefore the astial soul 
and terrestrial body of man may, in the dark 
hereafter, be absorbed into the cosmical ocean 
of sublimated elements and cease to feel his 
EGO, if this EGO did not deserve to soar higher, 
and the divine spirit still remain an unchanged 
entity, though this terrestrial experience of his 
emanations, may be totally obliterated at the 
instant of separation from the body. 



The Soul is Eternal. 
If the spirit, or the divine portion of the soul, 
is pre-existent as a distinct being, from all eter- 
nity, as Origen, Sinesius, and other Christian 
fathers and philosophers taught; and if it is the 
same, and nothing more, than the metaphysic- 
ally-objective soul, how can it be otherwise than 
eternal ? And what matters it, in such a case. 



whether man leads an anirnal or pure life, if, do 
what he may, he can never lose his individual- 
ity ? This doctrine is as pernicious in its con- 
sequences as that of vicarious atonement. Had 
the latter dogma, in company with the false 
idea that we are all immortals, been demon- 
strated to the world in its true light, humanity 
would have been bettered by its propagation* 
Crime and sin would be avoided, not for fear 
of earthly punishment or of a ridiculous hell, 
but for the sake of that which lies the most 
deeply rooted in our inner nature — the desire Of 
an individual and distinct life hereafter, the 
positive assurance that we cannot win it unless 
we '* take the kingdom of heaven by violence," 
and the conviction that neither human prayers 
nor the blood of another man will save us from 
individual destruction after death, unless we 
firmly link ourselves during our terrestrial life 
with our own immortal spirit — our God. 

No astral soul (that is, the spiritual body), 
even that of a pure, good and virtuous man, is 
immortal in the strictest sense. "From ele- 
ments it is formed, to elements it must return.*' 
Only while the soul of the wicked vanishes, and 
is absorbed beyond redemption, that of every 
other person, even moderately pure, simply 
changes its ethereal particles for still mote ethe- 
real ones; and while there remains in it a speck 
of the divine, the individual man, or rather his 
personal ego, must die in the endless course of 
time. " After death,'' says Procltis, " the soiil 
(the spirit) contihueth to linger in the > aerial 
body (astral form) until it is entirely purified 
from all angry and voluptuous passions; *• * 
then doth it put off by 2i second dying thii aerial 
body as it did the earthly one." Whereupon 
the ancients say that there is a celestial bod^ 
always joined with 7>^^ soul, 2iX\d which is />«* 
mortal, luminous and star-like. 

The Chaldean magi were the masters in the 
secret doctrine, and it was during the Babylon- 
ian captivity that the Jews learned its metaphy- 
sics as well as the practical tenets, and the im- 
mortality of the soul. Before this time the 
Jews believed that it was necessary to propitiate 
God with burnt offerings, so that they might be 
blessed in this life with success, they and their 
offspring. The Bible nowhere teaches the im- 
mortality of the soul prior to this period. Pliny 
mentions three schools of Magi, one that he 



31 



shows to have been founded at an unknown 
antiquity; the other established by Osthanes 
and Zoroaster. These different schools, wheth- 
er Magian, Egyptian or Jewish, were derived 
from India, or rather from both sides of the 
Himalayas. ' Many a lost secret lies buried un- 
der- wastes of sands in the Gobi desert of East- 
ern Turkestan, and the wise men of Khotan 
have preserved strange traditions and knowledge 
of alchemy. 

We must bear in mind the teachings of the 
old' philosophers: the spirit alone is immortal — 
the soul per se is neither eternal nor divine. 
When linked too closely with the physical brain 
of its terrestrial casket, it gradually becomes a 
finite mind, a simple animal and sentient life- 
principle (the nephesh oi the Hebrew Bible): 
" And God created * * * tv try nephesh (life) 
that moveth " (Genesis 1 121), meaning animals, 
and (Genesis 11:7) it is said: "And man be- 
came a nephesh " (living soul), which shows that 
the word nephesh was indifferently applied to 
immortal man and mortal beast. So it is evi- 
dent that the common people among the He- 
brews had not the slightest idea of soul and 
spirit, and made no difference between life, 
blood, and soul, calling the latter the "breath 
of life," using the word soul promiscuously to 
express life, blood, spirit and. body. The phi- 
losophers and most of the modern spiritual 
writers make the soul the divine spark, while 
Plato and the ancients often make it the spirit. 

Baron Bunsen shows that the origin of the 
prayers and hymns of the Egyptian Book of the 
Dead:is anterior to Menes and belongs proba- 
bly to the pro-Menite Dynasty of Abydos, be- 
tween; 3^100 and 4,600 years before Christ. 
The learned Egyptologist makes the era of 
Menes, or national empire, as not later than 
3,056 B.C. and demonstrates that " the system 
of Osirian worship and mythology was already 
formed before the era." " We find hymns and 
lessons of morality identical, or nearly so, in 
form and expression with those delivered by 
Jesus in his sermon on the mount," says Bunsen. 
Extracts from the Hermetic books are found 
oji the monuments and in the tombs, such as 
these, " To feed the hungry, give drink to the 
thirsty, clothe the naked, bury the dead," * * 
■* formed the first duty of a pious man." 

Back of all religions and civilizations there 



appears to be another still older, until we are 
lost in the gray mist of time that may have ex- 
isted twenty or fifty thousand years ago. 

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul 
is as old as this period ( Tablet Brit. Mus.j62)y 
and perhaps far older. It dates from the time 
when the soul was an objective being, hence 
when it could hardly be denied by itself; when 
humanity was a spiritual race and death existed 
not. Toward the decline of the cycle of life, 
the ethereal w«« spirit then fell into the sweet 
slumber of temporary unconsciousness in one 
sphere only to find himself awakening in the 
still brighter light of a higher one. But while 
the spiritual man is ever striving to ascend higher 
and higher toward its source of being, passing 
through the cycles and spheres of individual life, 
physical man had to descend with the great cy- 
cle of universal creation until it found itself 
clothed with the terrestrial garments. Thence- 
forth the soul was too deeply buried in its phys- 
ical clothing to reassert its existence, except in 
the cases of those mortal spiritual natures which, 
with every cycle, became more rare; but now 
and then it cropped out in a bright character, 
so pure, wise and good, that they have been 
deified and called gods, like Jesus Christ, Zoro- 
aster, Buddha, Confucius, etc. 

The fall of Adam and Eve in the garden of 
Eden, by eating of the forbidden fruit, must 
not be looked upon it as a personal transgres- 
sion of the law of God, but simply the law of 
dual evolution. Adam, or the first man, began 
his career of existence by dwelling in the garden 
of Eden, dressed in the celestial garment which 
is a "garment of heavenly light." (Sohar, 
II. 2g.) But when expelled, he is "clothed" 
by God, or the eternal law of evolution, or 
necessarianism, with coats of flesh, skin and 
hair. It only relates to the time when the di- 
vine spark (soul, a corruscation of the spirit) 
was to become incarnated in the flesh, which 
had evolved by physical laws of progression in 
a series of imprisonments, from a stone up 
through a long line of animal developments to 
the body of a man; and if he will but exercise 
his will and call upon his deity to help him, man 
can transcend the powers of the angel. " Know 
ye not that we shall judge angels?" asked St. 
Paul (i Corinthians, 6^3). "The real man is 
the soul (spirit)," teaches the Sohar. "The 



32 



mystery of the earthly man is after the mystery 
of the heavenly man. * * * The wise can 
read the mysteries in the human face." (ii:y6a.) 

According to the Chaldean doctrine found in 
the Kabala, the Jehovah of the Jews was one of 
the emanations of the divine essence, and was 
androgynous, being male and female, like all 
angels, double-sexed. As Brahma, the deity, 
manifested in the mythical Manu, or the first 
man born of Sway-ambhvua, or the Self-exist- 
ence, is finite, so Jehovah, embodied in Adam 
and Eve, is but a human-god, male and female, 
or the realization of humanity embodied in the 
first man. Like the androgynous man, male and 
female, passive and active, created in the im- 
age of the Elohim. But these androgynes were 
doomed to fall and lose their powers as soon as 
the two halves of the duality separated. Hence 
we have the fall of man by eating the forbidden 
fruit of the tree of knowledge; he thus lost his 
spiritual clothing and became clothed in flesh 
and skin and was material, so that he could not 
rise from the earth. So out of the rib of the 
first man, Adam, sprang Eve, the first woman, 
by the law of materialization. 

This idea is beautifully expressed in the Ori- 
ental religion: "When the Central Invisible 
(the Lord Ferho) saw the efforts of the divine 
Scintilla, unwilling to be dragged lower down 
into the degradation of matter, to liberate itself, 
he permitted it to shoot out from itself a monad 
(an ultimate atom), over which, attached to it 
as by the finest thread, the divine scintilla (the 
soul) had to watch during its ceaseless peregrin- 
ations from one to another. Thus the monad 
was shot down into the first form of matter and 
became encased in stone; then, in course of 
time, through the combined efforts of living fire 
and living water ^ both of which shone by their 
reflection upon the stone, the monad crept out 
of its prison to sunlight as a lichen, one of the 
lowest forms of vegetable life. From change to 
change it went higher and higher; the monad, 
with every new transformation borrowing more 
of the radiance of its parent scintilla, which 
approached it nearer at every transmigration. 
For '* the First Cause had willed it to proceed 
in this order," and destined it to creep on high- 
er until its physical form became once more the 
Adam of dusty shaped in the image of Adam 
Kadmon. 



Before undergoing its last earthly transform- 
ation, the external covering of the monad, from 
the moment of its conception as an embryo, 
passes in turn once more through the phases of 
the several kingdoms. In its fluidic prison it 
assumes a vague resemblance at various periods 
of its gestation to plant, reptile, bird, and ani- 
mal, until it becomes a human embryo. At 
the birth of the future man, the monad, radiat- 
ing with all the glory of its immortal parent, 
which watches it from the seventh sphere, be- 
comes senseless. (See Plato* s Timceus,) ** It 
loses all recollection of the past and returns to 
consciousness but gradually, when the instinqt 
of childhood gives way to reason and intelli- 
gence. After the separation between the life- 
principle (astral spirit) and the body takes place 
(i, e. in death), the liberated soul, monad, ex- 
ulting rejoins the mother and father spirit, the 
glory proportioned to the spiritual purity of the 
past earth-life, the Adam who has completed 
the circle of necessity and is freed from the last 
vestige of his physical encasement. Hence- 
forth, growing more and more radiant at each 
step of his upward progress, he mounts the 
shining path that ends at the point from which 
he started around the Grand Cycle. 

For each human spirit is a scintilla of the one 
all-pervading light, and this is in accordance to 
Buddhist doctrine, which is that the individual 
human spirits are numberless — collectively they 
are one, as every drop of water drawn from out 
the ocean is a part of it, and yet, metaphorically 
speaking, may have an individual existence, and 
still be one with the rest of the drops going to 
form that ocean, though it may take millions of 
years to find its way back whence it came; yet 
during all that time it retained its individuality, 
whether in vapor, in sap of plants or trees, or 
the blood of animals, until it mingled again 
with the waters whence it came; that this di- 
vine spirit animates the flower, the particle of 
granite on the mountain side, the lion and the 
man, when it was individualized into an intelli- 
gent, thinking soul, that followed the law of pro- 
gress, and ascended higher and higher in wis- 
dom and intelligence, until it again returned to 
the great sensorum whence it emanated. 

In Art Magic y page 27, there is an account 
of a remarkable medium, a Hindoo child twelve 
years of age, the daughter of a noble Hindoo of 



33 



high spiritual and intellectual attainments. 
This little child was a great writing medium. 
She sits on the floor with her head resting on a 
tripod, embracing its support with her little 
arms, and in this attitude she generally falls 
asleep for an hour, during which time sheet 
after sheet is written over with characters of 
ancient Sanscrit. The writing is done by an 
invisible hand without even the ordinary appli- 
ances of pens, pencil or ink. Over four vol- 
umes of these writings have been thus produced, 
and that in less than a period of three years. 
Questions in simple Hindostanee are laid upon 
the tripod with a lot of blank paper, and the 
questions are answered intelligibly. In answer 
to several questions concerning the origin of the 
soul, and the doctrine of its transmigration 
through the forms of animals, she wrote in San- 
scrit the following, which is a translation: 

"That the soul is an emanation from the 
Deity, and in its original essence is all purity, 
truth and wisdom, is an axiom which the dis- 
embodied learn, when the powers of the mem- 
ory are sufficiently awakened to perceive the 
states of existence anterior to mortal birth. In 
the paradise of purity and love souls spring up 
like blossoms in the All-Father's garden of im- 
mortal beauty. It is the tendency of that di- 
vine nature, whose chief attributes are love and 
wisdom, heat and light, to repeat itself eternally, 
and mirror forth its own perfections in scintilla- 
tions from itself. These sparks of heavenly fire 
become souls, and as the effect must share in 
the nature of the cause, the fire which warms 
into light also illuminates into light; hence the 
soul emanations from the Divine are all love 
and heat, while the illumination of light, which 
streams ever from the great central Sun of Be- 
ing, irradiates all souls with corresponding 
beams of light. Born of love, which corre- 
sponds to Divine heat and warmth, and irradi- 
ated with light, which is Divine wisdom and 
truth, the first and most powerful soul emana- 
tions repeated the action of their Supreme Ori- 
nator, gave off emanations from their own be- 
ing, some higher, some lower, the highest tend- 
ing upward into spiritual essences, the lowest 
forming particles of matter. These denser em- 
anations, following out the creative law, aggre- 
gated into suns, satellites and worlds, and each 
repeating the story of creation, suns gave birth 



to systems, and every member of a system be- 
came a theater of subordinate states of spiritual 
or material existence. 

" Thus do ideas descend into forms and forms 
ascend into ideas. Thus is the growth, devel- 
opment and progress of creation endless; and 
thus must spirit originate and ever create worlds 
of matter, for the purpose of its own unfold- 
ment." 

" Will the mighty march of creation never 
cease ? Will the cable anchored in the heart 
of the great mystery. Deity, stretch out for- 
ever ?" 

"Forever! shout the blazing suns, leaping 
on in the fiery orbit of their shining life, and 
traveling in the glittering pathway ten thousand 
satellites and meteoric sparks, whirling and 
flashing in their jeweled crowns, all embryonic 
germs of new young worlds that shall be. * * 

" Earths that have attained to the capacity 
to support organic life, necessarily attract it; 
earths demand it, heaven supplies it. Whence? 
As earths groan for the leadership of superior 
beings to rule over them, the spirits in their 
distant Edens hear the whispers of the tempting 
serpent, the animal principle, the urgent intel- 
lect, which, appealing to the blest souls in their 
distant paradises, fill them with indescribable 
longings for change, for broader vistas of know- 
ledge, for mightier powers; they would be as 
the gods and know good and evil; and in this 
urgent appeal of the earths for man, and this 
involuntary yearning of the spirit for intellectual 
knowledge, the union is effected between the 
two, and the spirit becomes precipitated into 
the realms of matter, to undergo a pilgrimage 
through the probationary states of the earths, 
and only to regain its paradise again by the 
fulfillment of that pilgrimage. 

" When spirits lived as such in paradise, em- 
anations from a spiritual deific source, they 
knew no sex nor reproduced their kind. * * * 
When they fell, and the earth, like magnetic 
tractors, drew them within the vortex of its 
grosser elements, they became what the earth 
compelled them to be. In the earlier ages of 
these growing worlds the conditions of life were 
rude and violent; hence the creatures on them 
partook of their nature. Then too first obtained 
the nature of sex and the law of generation. 
To people these earths man, like other living 



34 



creatures, must reproduce his kind. All things 
in matter are male and female; minerals, plants, 
animals andmen. Spirit, the creative energy, is 
the masculine principle that creates; nature, the 
passive recipient, is that which germinates; 
hence creation. Man must obey the law; 
hence sex and generation. * * * 

" Man lives on many earths before he reaches 
this. Myriads of worlds swarm in space, where 
the soul in rudimental states performs its pil- 
grimages ere he reaches the large and shining 
planet named liarth, the glorious function of 
which is to confer self-consciousness. At this 
point only is he man; at every other stage of 
his vast, wild journey he is but an embryonic 
being; a fleeting, temporary shape of matter; a 
creature in which a part, but only a pari, of the 
high imprisoned soul shines forth; a rudimental 
shape, with rudimental functions; ever living, 
dying — sustaining a littering spiritual existence 
as rudimental as the material shape whence it 
emerged; a butterfly springing up from the 
chrysalitic shell, but ever, as it onward rushes, 
in new births, new deaths, new incarnations, 
anon to die and live again, but still stretch up- 
ward, still strive onward, still rush on the giddy, 
dreadful, toilsome, rugged path, until it awak- 
ens once more, once more to live and be a ma- 
terial shape, a thing of dust, a creature of flesh 
and blood, but now a inan. 

"It is from the dim memory that the soul 
retains first of its original brightness and fall, 
next of its countless migrations through the 
various undertones of beings that antedate its 
appearance on this earth as man, that the belief 
in the doctrine of the metempsychosis (transmi- 
gration of the souls through the animal king- 
doms) has arisen. Yet il is a sin against divine 
truth to believe that the exalted soul that has 
once reached the dignity and upright stature of 
manhood should or could retrograde into the 
bodies of creeping things or crouching animals 
— not so, not so! 

*'In the fleeting images which antecedent 
states leave on the spiritual brain, in the half 
effaced and half-imperfect perceptions of exist- 



ence which each new stage of progress and each 
successive journey through various lower earths 
leave, like an unquiet, ill-remembered dream, 
on the spirit's consciousness, the past becomes 
confused with the present, and something of 
what we have been imposes its shadow across 
the path of the future, as a dim possibility of 
what we may be. 

" After the soul's birth into humanity it ac- 
quires self-consciousness, knowledge of its own 
individuality, and closing up forever its career 
of material transformations with the death of 
the mortal body, it gravitates on to a fresh series 
of existences in purely spiritual realms of being. 
Here the further purifications of the soul com- 
mence anew, commences with that sublime at- 
tribute of self-knowledge which enables even 
the wickedest spirit to enjoy and profit by the 
change; for memory supplies him with lessons 
which urge him to struggle forward into con- 
quest over sin, and prophetic sight stimulates 
him to aspire until he shall attain, by well di- 
rected effort, the sublime hights of purity and 
goodness from which he fell to become a mor- 
tal pilgrim. 

" The triumphant souls who enter heaven by 
effort are God's ministering angels of power, 
wisdom, strength and beauty. The dwellers in 
primal states of Eden are only spirits. The 
first are God-men, heavenly men — strong and 
mighty powers — thrones, dominions, world- 
builders, glorious hierarchies of sun, bright souls, 
who never more can fall. Spirits are but the 
breath, the spark, the shadow of a god; angels 
are gods in person. * * 

" During the various transitional states of the 
soul in passing through the myriads of forms and 
myriads of earths, whereon their probations are 
outwrought, the changes are all effected by a 
process analogous to human death. During the 
period that subsists ere the soul, expelled from 
one material shape, enters another, the drifting 
spirit, still enveloped by the magnetic aural 
body which binds it to the realm of matter, 
becomes for its short term of intermediate spir- 
itual existence an elementary spirit." 



--^^^^^^M^^^^^>^^ 



CHAPTER IV. 

MEDIUMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
Prophets, Seers, Magicians, Soothsayers, Astrologers, Fortune-Tellers, Materializations, Raps, Trances. 



From the earliest history of man down to the 
present time some persons have been possessed 
of great psychological powers, and have in all 
countries held the position of prophets, seers, 
magicians, soothsayers, astrologers, medicine- 
men and fortune-tellers. Many of them have 
been exposed in their tricks, while others have 
stood out in bold relief as possessing a power of 
divining the future and telling the past, reveal- 
ing facts and incidents that no one could have 
known, or were only in possession of the dead. 

There appears to be a great variety of gifts 
and powers possessed by these persons. Some 
are developed in one specialty, and others in 
something different; but they all point in one 
direction, and claim that man exists after death, 
that the spirit or life -principle of man lives be- 
yond the grave, whether it be from the teach- 
ings of the Bible, Rig-Veda, Heremetic books 
of ancient Egypt, the Zend-Avesta of Persia, 
the Koran or the Book of Mormon. Their 
priests and priestesses are millions, and their 
churches, temples and pagodas lift their spires 
in every land; and the great majority of all peo- 
ple in all nations have a religion and a belief 
in the immortality of the soul. Man is a reli- 
gious animal, and it arises from a feeling within 
that he cannot smother or keep down. It ever 
rises up and reaches out and will contemplate 
and think of the future, a life in the spirit world. 
He sees the dead bodies of his friends and rela- 
tions laid in the cold grave; but he cannot rec- 
oncile his mind, his reason, to the belief that 
that is the last of him. The body will return 
to the dust from which it came, but whither has 
gone the life, the intelligence that once anim- 
ated the cold remains ? He sees the birds fly- 
ing through the air, and the smoke rise from 
the burning logs that were once living trees; 



they are shortly consumed by the fire, there is 
only a small pile of ashes left; what has become 
of the rest ? The smoke has disappeared in the 
skies; so, he says, must the life, the intelligence 
of his friends have gone the same way. There 
must be some place where all these things have 
gone; there must be a great reservoir for all; 
there must be an invisible world as well as a 
visible world. Where it is, or how it is, we 
cannot tell; but it must exist; it cannot be lost; 
there is no annihilation of anything; it has only 
changed its condition; that is all. 

The evidence given by the mediums is over- 
whelming, if we can rely on their statements as 
true, as they have in all ages been put to the 
severest test; but it is something seen, heard 
and felt, that is not capable of explanation or 
demonstration upon any scientific bas.is known 
to man; and those who have not that pecul- 
iar power, which compose the largest number, 
are not willing that a thing can be seen, heard 
and felt by some and not by all. 

And here lies the great difficulty to make 
them believe, for they are not willing to admit 
that others have higher perception and can see, 
hear and see things that they cannot; therefore 
they remain incredulous and skeptical. And 
there are some whose moral and religious organs 
are so low that the question might be, have 
they evolved to the condition of spiritual beings, 
or are they still man-like apes ? 

There is something very remarkable about 
this psychic force, or spiritual manifestations, 
that will not act in the presence of some per- 
sons while it will make itself apparent with oth- 
ers. With some it derives force and power, 
while with others it weakens and will not act. 
There is something in their nature or aura that 
repels the spirit, like that of the negative pole 

33 



of the magnet; and especially where the mind is 
firmly set, in opposition, of a positive nature — 
not that of disbelief, but a fixed purpose not to 
believe. 

Persons who jiossess this mediumship power 
are very sensitive, and have a large amount of 
electricity in their bodies, which generate this 
force like the electric eel; and some have it so 
strong that they are able to give a slight shock 
which thrills down the spine, and are able to 
light a jet of gas with the end of their fingers. 

The mind of the investigator should be kept 
untrammeled, free from the influence of men, 
authority, prejudice or passion, so that it may 
have free scope in- the investigation of facts and 
laws which exist and are established in nature, 
and is the grand antecedent necessity to scien- 
tific discovery and permanent progress. And 
until men of science can come forth and inves- 
tigate the phenomena of spiritualism in that 
light, like Hare, De Morgan, Brookes, Wal- 
lace, De Gasparin, Thury, Wagner and Butlerof, 
etc. they will never succeed. These men had 
the manhood to admit the phenomena, and 
have struggled to solve the mystery and see if it 
has any relation to the existence of men's here- 
after; and the only solution they can find is, 
that the word comes back that " man lives and 
exists beyond the grave," and that intelligence 
never dies, that like matter and force'it is inde- 
structible. 

In this age of cold reason and prejudice even 
the church has to look to science for help to 
support her tottering creeds; when in reality 
these manifestations are the same as those in the 
Bible, and go to explain it and establish the 
fact beyond a doubt of the immortality of the 
soul. But the church is so blindly roped up in 
her creeds and dogmas that she is not willing to 
admit these facts, which come as further evi- 
dence and as a new addition to the good old 
book, but contend that it is sealed and that the 
days of miracles and manifestation of the spirit 
are gone by, and that there are to be no more 
revelations; that those given in the dim mists of 
the past are sufficient, and that it is blasphemy 
to pretend to say that there can be anything 
more given from on high. 

Yet science and reason will tell us that if 
those marvelous powers ever existed, they can 
be repeated now; that the laws of God, which 



are the laws of nature, are unchangeable, and 
have always existed and will forever exist. But 
these new revelations tend to interfere with 
some of the established rules and tenets of the 
church and the teachings of modern Christian- 
ity, which have widely departed from those 
taught by the founders, for her representatives 
have poisoned the waters of simple faith, and 
now humanity mirrors itself in waters made tur- 
bid with all the mud stirred up from the bottom 
of the once pure shrine. The anthropomorphic 
God of our fathers is replaced by anthropomor- 
phic monsters, whose ripples send back the dis- 
torted images of truth and facts, as evoked by 
its misguided imagination. 

Those who are soul-blind are constitutionally 
incapable of distinguishing psychological causes 
from material effects, as the color-blind are to 
select scarlet from purple. There is often want- 
ing a development of that brain matter in cer- 
tain things, as to make the person perfectly in- 
competent to understand that subject; as with 
some persons Who have no taste or liking for 
mathematics, and no teaching or explanation 
can ever make them mathematicians, and it is 
a waste of time to try and teach them, though 
they may have ability in other branches of sci- 
ence. So it is with many men; they have no 
development in those organs of the brain that 
tend to elevate them above the cold atheist. 
They are perfectly destitute of the higher facul- 
ties that lift man above the brute creation, as 
these organs stand higher and are nearer rela- 
ted to wisdom than reason. 

Reason being a faculty of our physical brain, 
one which is justly defined as that of deducing 
inferences from premises, and being wholly de- 
pendent on the evidence of other senses, cannot 
be a quality pertaining directly to our divine 
spirit. Hence all reasoning which implies dis- 
cussion and argument would be useless, as rea- 
son has been substituted by man for thiJt of in- 
tuition or instinct in the lower order of animals, 
and has so got control of mind as to discard 
anything that cannot be solved by its test. 
Therefore it is difficult to reason on religion, 
but it must be looked upon with blind faith, as 
it will not stand any of the tests known to sci- 
ence, so we are forced to accept it as it is re- 
vealed to us by those gifted with those divine 
powers which belong to prophets, seers and 



6i 



mediums, whose minds possess that quickness 
of perception, sight, hearing and feeling that 
belong to the soul. 

Logic shows us that as mind as well as matter 
had a common origin it must have attributes in 
common, and as the vital and divine spark in 
man's material body is the causation, so it must 
lurk in every subordinate species. The latent 
mentality which in the lower kingdoms is recog- 
nized as a semi-consciousness, consciousness 
and instinct, is largely subdued in man. Rea- 
son, the out-growth of the physical brain, de- 
velopes at the expense of instinct — the flicker- 
ing reminiscence of a once divine omniscience 
— spirit. Reason, the badge of the sovereignty 
of physical man over all other physical organ- 
isms, is often put to shame by the instinct of an 
animal. As his brain is more perfect than that 
of any other creature, its emanations most 
naturally produce the highest results of mental 
action. But reason avails only for the consid- 
eration of m.ental things. It is capable of help- 
ing its possessor to a knowledge of spirit. 

In losing instinct man loses his intuitional 
powers, which are the crown and ultimatum of 
instinct. Reason is the clumsy weapon of sci- 
ence — intuition the unerring guide of the seer. 
Instinct teaches plant and animal their season 
for the procreation of their species, and guides 
the dumb brute to find its appropriate remedy 
in the hour of sickness. Reason, the pride of 
man, fails to check the propensities of his nat- 
ure, and brooks no restraint upon the unlimited 
gratification of his senses. Far from leading 
him to be his own physician, its subtile philos- 
ophies lead him too often to his own destruc- 
tion. Woman possesses less reason than man, 
and relies more on her intuition. Her percep- 
tion is therefore quicker than man's, and she 
lives a purer and better life morally and physic- 
ally; therefore she makes the best medium, for 
she relies upon intuition rather than reason. 

Every human being is born with the rudiment 
of the inner sense called mtuitio?i, which may 
be developed into what the Scotch know as 
"second sight." All the great philosophers, 
Plotinus, Porphyry and lamblicus, employed 
this faculty, and taught the doctrine. "There 
is a faculty of the human mind," writes lam- 
blichus, " which is superior to all which is born 
or begotten. Through it w^ are enabled to at- 



tain union with the superior intelligences, to 
being transported beyond the scenes of this 
world, and to partaking the higher life and 
peculiar powers of the heavenly ones." All 
great mentalities possess that power. It is that 
which lifted Homer and Shakespeare above the 
common herd of humanity. 

To this inner sight or intuition the Jews owe 
their Bible and the Christians their New Testa- 
ment. For what Moses and Jesus said and 
wrote and gave to the world was the fruit of 
their intuition or illumination, that bears the 
marks of modern Spiritualism, for Christ was 
a medium of the highest order. He could 
see, hear and talk with spirits. All the spirit 
world appeared at his command — the physical, 
intellectual and spiritual. He could multiply 
the loaves and fishes, see into the hearts of men 
as vvell as into the water to tell the fishermen 
where to cast their nets. He could still the 
tempest; cure the sick, lame and blind; and cast 
out devils — evil spirits that had got possession 
of men. 

Were it not for this intuition, undying though 
often wavering because it is so clogged with 
matter, man's life would be a parody and human- 
ity a fraud. This ineradicable feeling of the; 
presence of something oittside and inside ourselves; 
is one that no dogmatic contradictions nor ex- 
ternal form of worship can destroy in humanity,, 
let scientists and clergymen do what they may. 
Moved by such thoughts of the boundlessness, 
and impersonality of the Deity, Gautama-Bud- 
dha exclaimed: "As the four rivers which fall 
into the Ganges lose their names as soon as they 
mingle their waters with the holy river, so all 
who believe in Buddha cease to be Brahmans."' 
It is the same thing that forced the Psalmist 
to cry out, " I know that my Redeemer lives." 
It has led men to the stake and supported them 
in the most trying hours. 

" The gods exist," says Epicurus, " but they 
are not what the rabble suppose them to be.'* 
" But neither the First Great Cause, nor its 
emanation — human-immortal spirit— have left 
themselves without a witness." Mesmerism, 
modern Spiritualism and occultism are there to 
attest the great truths of the immortality of the 
soul, 'i^ * ^ 'phe Pythagorean knowledge 
of things and the profound erudition of the 
Gnostics, the world and time-honored teachings 



of the great philosophers of antiquity, were all 
rejected as doctrines of Antichrist. 

The loft seven wise men of the Orient, the 
remnant group of the Neoplatonic philosophy, 
were Hermios, Piscious, Diogenes, Eulalius, 
Damoskius, Simplicius and Isidorus, who fled 
from the fanatical persecutions of Justinian to 
Persia. The reign of wisdom then closed on 
Europe for over fifteen centuries. The books 
of Thoth (or Hermes Trismagistus), which con- 
tain within their sacred pages the spiritual and 
physical history of the creation and progress of 
our world, were left to mold in oblivion and 
contempt for ages. But by the untiring research 
of Champollion, Max Muller and others, the 
Oriental learning has been resurrected from a 
night of oblivion. Though shrouded in mystery 
and cabalistic signs, that were intended ever to 
keep the secret from the knowledge of the 
ignorant rabble. 

" Magic, w^hich is based on the existence of a 
mixed world of forces placed within not without 
us, and with which we can enter into commu- 
nication by the use of certain arts and practices; 

* * an element existing in nature unknown 
to most men; which gets hold of persons and 
withers and breaks them down as the fearful 
hurricane does a bulrush. It scatters men far 
away; it strikes them in a thousand places at 
the same time, without their perceiving the in- 
visible foe or being able to protect themselves. 

* * All this is demonstrated; but that this 
element could choose friends and select favor- 
ites, obey their thoughts, answer to the human 
voice, and understand the meaning of traced 
signs — that is what people cannot realize and 
what their reason rejects; and that is what I saw. 
And I say it here most emphatically, that tome 
it is a fact and a truth demonstrated forever.'* 
(Du Potet, Magie Devoike, pp. 57, 149.) 

1 his power was well known to the ancients. 
Whit is now called nervous fluid or magnetism 
the men of old called occult powe7\ or the po- 
tency of the soul subjection to magic; which 
power Christ possessed, as he cast out devils 
by it. And it is evident that he must have got 
initiated into the mysteries while in Egypt, or 
from some of the magicians of Chaldea, who 
were great adepts in the art, which is now be- 
ginning to be known and revered; and it throws 
great light on the miracles of the Bible and 



explains away the strange stories of witches, 
ghosts, spooks and apparitions, and the mira- 
cles that Jesus Christ and his apostles "per- 
formed. It is evident from the writings of the 
New Testament that these magicians had some- 
thing to do with the birth of Christ, for they 
were the wise men from the East that followed 
the star to Bethlehem. 

Professor Dominico Berti, in his life of Bruno, 
says: " In common with the Alexandrian Pla- 
tonists and the later Kabalists, held that Jesus 
Christ was a great magician in the sense given 
to this appellation by Porphyry and Cicero, 
who called it the divina sapientea (divine know- 
ledge); and Philo Judaeus, who described the 
Magi as the most wonderful inquirers into the 
hidden mysteries of natuie, not in the degrad- 
ing senses given now-a-days. The Magi spoken 
of in the Bible were holy men, who, setting 
themselves apart from everything else on earth, 
contemplated the divine virtues and understood 
the divine nature of the gods and spirits the 
more clearly. So they initiated others into the 
same mysteries, which consist in one holding an 
interrupted intercourse with those invisible be- 
ings during life. Magic in this sense is a higher 
order of religion, in which the adept is enabled 
to hold converse with spirits and angels, which 
are a higher order of spirits who have progressed 
in the spirit world." 



Mediumship. 

There are two classes of mediums. One 
class — the high, the holy, the pure, the good — 
nay be called properly mediators, for they come 
between the godlike principle and man. The 
other class is composed of those who use this 
power for gain, who descend to the low pur- 
pose of using this gift to accomplish bad and 
wicked deeds — revenge, malice, debauchery, 
lust, vice and crime. In either case it is a gift 
of nature, at birth or subsequently, modified so 
that the person's aura will attract those influ- 
ences that so strangely manifest themselves in 
the different mediums. 

To BE A Mediator or good medium, it is 
necessary for the persons to be pure and good 
men and women, or they will draw to them- 
selves bad influences, as "like attracts like;" 
and the good spirits gather around the good 
mediums who live pure lives, while the bad 



39 



mediums gather bad spirits. So that it all de- 
pends on the medium as to what kind of com- 
munications one gets. God-men, like Christ, 
Apoilonius, lamblichus, Plotinus and Porphyry, 
gathered this heavenly nimbus around them 
that sent forth wisdom and goodness like rays 
of light, to teach men to be better, to overcome 
the temptations of the flesh, and to aspire to a 
purer and better life around them, evolved by 
the pov,-er of their own pure souls. The best 
and most exalted spirits were ever ready 
to assist them in all that was good and 
noble. 

It is asserted that Apoilonius, on account of 
his abstemious life, could see " the present and 
the future in a clear mirror;" while Christ could 
read the hearts of men and hold converse with 
angels; which would be the condition of all 
men if they possessed that high and exalted 
nature. A few in all ages of the world have 
had that gift; but they have all been men and 
women of great purity of soul and the most 
abstemious in habits. And the great seventy, 
like the fakirs of India, by their self-denial and 
torture of the body, and the mortification of 
the flesh, were enabled to perform wonders. 

Plotinus taught that there is in the soul a liv- 
ing principle which attracts it onward and up- 
ward to its origin and center, the Eternal God, 
and this accounts for the cause why all admire 
the pure and good man, for in the lowest and 
most depraved there is a divine spark that is 
pure; yet it is so loaded down with vile and bad 
matter that it is difficult for it to do right; and 
for that reason he can comprehend the sub- 
lime truth of right and justice which he so much 
admires in others, but has not the moral cour- 
age to emulate, and is forced by his base pas- 
sions, not willing to submit to the self-denial 
and discipline that others possess, which elevates 
them. 

But when a medium defiles the temple in 
which dwells the spirit of the living God, the 
temple becomes polluted by the admission of 
evil passions, thoughts and desires, the medium 
falls into the sphere of sorcery. The door is 
opened, the pure spirits retire and the evil ones 
rush in. They will no more mingle in the 
spirit world than they will here. The sorcerer, 
like the pure magician, forms his own aura and 
subjects to his will congenial yet inferior spirits. 



who assist him in his performances and in car- 
rying out his evil designs on man. 

There is a class of weak-minded men, women 
and children who give themselves up to be 
controlled by bad spirits, who so get control of 
the person as to make them do as they please. 
Ignoring their own individuality they blindly 
follow the promptings of these evil spirits, and 
often allow them to guide and so control them 
that they commit crimes and do many wicked 
things, so they have been called possessed wdth 
devils, or more properly speaking, evil spirits; 
and in certain cases they have been obsessed, 
as in the case of Mary Magdalen. 

This class of mediums is always passive, 
whether beneficent or maleficent; and happy 
are the pure in heart, who repel unconsciously 
by that very clearness of their inner nature the 
dark, evil spirits; for verily they have no other 
weapon of defense but that inborn goodness 
and purity. 

Mediumship, as it is often practiced now-a- 
days, is a more undesirable gift than the robe 
of Nessus; and it is what has brought Spiritual- 
ism into disrepute, and caused it to be shunned 
by many; for when it descends to that of sorce- 
ry, witchcraft, the black arts and voodooism, 
it is to be deprecated, and should be punished 
with the severity of the law. For it brings 
around bad influences that are likely to mislead 
weak-minded persons. 

True and pure mediums must be properly 
tested by the communications given, and all 
communications must be closely scrutinized by 
the light of reason and justice. As St. John 
says (i Epistle, chap, iv): "Believe not every 
spirit; but try the spirits, whether they are of 
God; many false prophets have gone out into 
the world." The ancient witches and familiar 
spirits generally turned their gift to a trade; like 
the Obeah woman of En-dor, though she may 
have killed her fatted calf for Saul, accepted 
hire from other visitors. 

In India, the jugglers, who by the way are 
less avaricious than many modern mediums, 
and the Essana, or sorcerer and serpent-charm- 
ers, of Asia and Africa, al! exercise their gifts 
for money. Not so with the mediators and 
hierophants. "Buddha was a mendicant and 
refused his father's throne." "The Son of man 
had not where to lay his head." The chosen 



40 



apostles provided " neither gold nor silver nor 
brass in their purses." Apolloniiis gave one- 
half of his fortune to his relatives, the other half 
to the poor. lamblichus and Plotinus were 
renowned for charity and self-denial; the fakirs, 
or holy mendicants of India, never take pay; 
the Pythagoreans, Essenes and Theraputas, be- 
lieved their hands would be defiled by the touch 
of money. When the apostles were offered 
money to impart their spiritual powers, refused. 
Peter, though a coward and three times denied 
his Savior, still indignantly spurned the offer, 
saying, "Thy money perish with thee, because 
thou hast thought that the gift of God may be 
purchased with money." These men were good 
mediums or mediators, guided merely by their 
own personal spirit or divine soul, and availing 
themselves of the help of good spirits, so far as 
they directed them in the right path, ever guided 
by the prompting arising from a pure heart. 

Apollonius spurned the sorcerers and " com- 
mon soothsayers," and declared that it was his 
peculiar abstemious mode of life which gave 
gave him such powers. Professor Wilder be- 
lieved with lamblichus in the attaining of divine 
power, "which, overcoming the mundane life, 
rendered the individual an organ of the Deity." 
Plotinus, when asked to attend the pubUc wor- 
ship of the gods, said, "It is for them (the 
spirits) to come to me." That the wall of the 
pure man will command the spirits as well as 
other matter, and that our souls can attain 
communion with the highest intelligences, with 
"natures loftier than itself," and carefully 
drive away from his theurgical ceremonies every 
inferior spirit or bad demon, which he taught 
his disciples to recognize. Jesus declared man 
the lord of the sabbath, and at his command 
the terrestrial and elementary spirits fled from 
their temporary abodes — a power which was 
shared by Apollonius and many of the Broth- 
erhood of the Essence of India and Mount 
Carmel. 

The ancient Jews in the time of Moses, Da- 
vid and Samuel, encouraged prophecy, divina- 
tion, astrology and soothsaying, and maintained 
schools and colleges in which the natural gifts 
were strengthened and developed; while witches 
and those who divined by the spirit of Ob were 
put to death. Even in Christ's time the poor 
physical mediums who were obsessed by evil 



spirits were driven to the tombs. It is evident 
that the ancierts knew the difference between 
the good and bad spirits, and that the latter 
brought ruin upon the individual and disaster 
upon the community. 

Physical manifestations depend on the medi- 
um being passive, and spirits never control per- 
sons of a positive character, who are determined 
to resist all extraneous influences. When they 
seize upon the weak and feeble-minded they 
often drive their victims to vice. Physical me- 
diums are generally sickly, or inclined to some 
abnormal vice; and their influence generally is 
of a low order ol spirits or elements that are 
injurious to the medium; while the higher order 
of mediums generally enjoy good health. 

A medium is only the vehicle through which 
the spirits display their power. The aura that 
served them varies day by day, and as it would 
appear from Prof. Crookes' experiments, even 
hour by hour. It is an external effect resulting 
from interior causes. The medium's moral 
state determines the kind of spirits that come; 
and the spirits come reciprocally, influence the 
medium intellectually, physically and morally. 
The perfection of the mediumship is in ratio to 
his passivity, and the danger he incurs is in 
equal degree. When he is fully "developed," 
perfectly passive, his own astral spirit may be 
benumbed and even crowded out of his body, 
which is then occupied by an elemental, or, 
what is worse, by a human fiend of the eighth 
sphere, who proceeds to use it as his own organ- 
ism, and often drives the medium unconsciously 
to commit some diabolical crime, to even sac- 
rifice her own child. 

The adepts in occultism claim the power to 
bring to their aid the occult forces in nature, 
which assists them, and without that power 
they could do nothing; that they command 
these forces to help them, and it is by learning 
how to control them that they are enabled to 
perform such things; that the invisible intelli- 
gences are at their command, and the secret is 
to know how to command them; but that these 
life-forces or principles can only be. used by 
certain manipulators. It is different from Spir- 
itualism, hence they control the forces, while in 
the latter the forces control the medium. It 
may be possible, in the case of occultism, that 
the adept may be deceived and be controlled 



41 



by a higher spirit. And that there are two 
classes of forces, one which is under the control 
of the good, virtuous and wise, which requires 
great severity, the observance of rigid rules of 
sobriety, abstinence, cleanliness, purity of soul 
and body, the observance of fixed times for 
meditation or prayer, abstraction, when the 
soul can go out into the ether and associate 
with those who have long since passed away; 
that a mind thus influenced can travel on the 
wings of electricity, w^hich is its vehicle, to the 
remotest parts of the earth in a few seconds. 
The astral soul is a separate and distinct entity 
of our ego, and can roam far away from the 
body without breaking the thread of life, that 
time and space do not enter into its wander- 
ings, that it can traverse the earth like an elec- 
tric spark. 

The adept knows the nature of the soul — a 
form composed of nervous fluid and atmospheric 
ether — and knows how the vital torce can be 
made active or passive at will, so long as there 
is no final destruction of some necessary organ. 
Graffarilus claims that every object in nature 
that is not artificial, when once burned to ashes, 
still retains that form in the ashes. Kircher, 
Digby and Vallemont hold that forms of plants 
could be resuscitated from their ashes. At a 
meeting of naturalists in 1834, at Stuttgart, a 
receipt for producing such experiments was 
found in a work of Oetinger. Ashes of burned 
plants contained in vials, when heated, exhibit- 
ed again their various forms. " A. small obscure 
cloud gradually rose in the vial, took a definite 
form and presented to the eye the flower or 
plant." "The earthly husk," w^-ote Oetinger, 
"remains in the retort, while the volatile es- 
ence ascends, like a spirit, perfect in form but 
void of substance." 

And if the astral form of a plant, when its 
body is dead, still lingers in its ashes, as has 
been shown by chemists, by the application of 
heat, will skeptics persist in saying that the soul 
of man, the inner ego, after the death of the 
grosser form, is at once dissolved and is no 
more ? "At death," says a philosopher, " the 
one body exudes from the other by osmose 
through the brain; it is held near its old garment 
by a double attraction, physical and spiritual, 
until the latter decomposes. And if the proper 
conditions are given, the soul can reinhabit it 



and resume the suspended life. It does it in 
sleep; it does it more thoroughly in trance. 
Most surprisingly at the command and with the 
assistance of the Heremetic adept, lamblichus 
declared that a person endowed with such re- 
suscitating power is 'full of God.' All the 
subordinate spirits of the upper spheres are at 
his command, for he is no longer a mortal, but 
himself a god. In his Epistle to the Corinth- 
ians, Paul remarks that "the spirits oi the proph- 
ets are subject to the prophets." 

" If the molecules of the cadaver are imbued 
with the physical and chenjical forces of the 
living organism, what is to prevent them from 
being again set in motion, provided we know 
the nature of the vital force and how to com- 
mand it.? The materialist can certainly offer 
no objection, for with him it is no question of 
reinfusing a soul. For him the soul has no ex- 
istence, and the human body may be regarded 
simply as a vital engine, a locomotive which 
will start upon the application of heat and force 
and stop when they are w^ithdrawn. To the 
theologian the case offers greater difficulties, 
for, in his view, death cuts asunder the tie that 
binds soul and body, and the one can no more 
be returned into the other without a miracle 
than the born infant can be compelled to resume 
its foetal life." 

But the Heremetic philosophers stand be- 
tween these two irreconcilable antagonists, and 
are masters of the situation. Spirit controls the 
body. The life that animates the body, wheth- 
er voluntarily or involuntarily, as you term it, 
is in reality the result of the existing spirit. 
Every molecule, every susceptible atom, each 
substance attracted in our bodies, is under the 
direct control of our spiritual natures. Do not 
mistake this for will; for this is not under the 
control of our volition. Do not misiake it for 
intellect. The intellect is subtile in its opera 
tions; but the spiritual nature is still more sub- 
tile, and that it is which voluntarily or invol- 
untarily controls every atom of our physical 
existence. It attracts to us each substance that 
is necessary to make up our bodies, rejecting 
such as are not consistent with the form thereof, 
and determines the nature of our physical bod- 
ies in a great degree. 

Every embodied mind possesses in embryo 
every germ and power that is possessed by the 



42 



disembodied mind, and the disembodied mind 
possesses every power that is possessed by the 
embodied mind, with this difference, they have 
a physical organixation of their own, like our- 
selves, and, are obliged to act upon physical 
organisms here, in order to work out the mani- 
festations of their presence and intelligence. 
They have the advantage of possessing greater 
elasticity of will, of acting upon more minute 
particles of matter than you can govern, 
because your actions, in connection with mat- 
ter, must be directed exclusively by the motions 
of your physical body. The spirit, on the 
other hand, has a more subtle will, and, being 
constrained by no physical body, can act upon 
more nearly ultimated particles of matter, and 
thereby produce effects which defy physical 
science, and which scientific men fail to under- 
stand, for they do not understand the laws by 
which they exist; they cannot explain by what 
power the muscles are contracted, by which 
the hand is moved, and as to how a table can 
be moved by an invisible force, is impossible — 
yet it is the same hidden force, the same will- 
power of the spirit that accomplishes both; 
still, there has been a thought conveyed over 
the nerves that sets the muscles to work, and 
the brain is moved by the spirit that has set it 
to work to send out the thought that travels 
over the nerves that causes the muscles to 
move. 

The spirits see the aura around physical bod- 
ies that you do not. They see the action of 
the nervous fluids, and know from its sight 
that these nervous fluids are composed of in- 
finitesimal globules, each one corresponding to 
its particular function, which the spirit employs 
when it raps on the table, or produces vibra- 
tions of the atmosphere. The infinitesimal 
molecules that are thus employed might be 
called vacuums; and in these minute globules 
of atmosphere or aura resides the power, not 
only of communications, but to lift tables ard 
project bodies through the atmosphere. And 
it is owing to this atmosphere or aura that sur- 
rounds the person or thing that enables the 
spirit to communicate to mortal beings. 



Materialization. 
The materialization of a spirit is only gather- 
ing around it the atoms that are in the aura and 



atmosphere around the medium, from whom it 
draws the material to render its form visible to 
embodied souls or living human beings. The 
spirit having the form and the intelligence is 
soon able, under proper conditions, to make 
itself visible. As the red and yellow rays are 
strong and antagonistic they have a tendency to 
scatter the atoms of matter, so materialization 
has to be done in the dark or in blue rays of 
light where all other rays but the blue are ex- 
cluded. So when spirits wish to materialize 
they draw from the air, which is the great res- 
ervoir of inorganic matter, such material as 
light will not show in a clear sun light but in 
the dark it gives off a pale light. When all the 
rays of light are reflected the object is white, 
when all are absorbed the object is black. 

Myrids of animals exist that can not be seen 
with the naked eye because they are too small 
or have not the coloring matter to reflect the 
rays of light. 

The body generates an aura through the 
pores of the skin by a process of endosmose ac- 
tion, is then thrown off by an exosmose action 
in the form of carbonic acid gas, which is poi- 
sonous if again returned to the human system, 
but under the manifestations of the spirit there 
is, accompanying this carbonic acid gas, a cer- 
tain force or power, whieh, for the lack of a 
better term, we call nerve-aura. It is a similar 
force that vibrates along the nervous system of 
the human body, and it is upon this substance 
that the spirit acts to produce a sound. Nitro- 
gen is the most subtle of all elemental proper- 
ties of the atmosphere. Carbonic acid gas, 
mingled with nitrogen in atomic proportions, 
becomes the material whereby spirit-lights and 
vibrations are produced, by the aid of electric- 
ity. These vibrations occur in direct connec- 
tion with certain conditions known to the spirits 
but which is unknown to science, because it has 
no instruments fine enough to make an analysis 
of these powers; and the best physical manifest- 
ations are when the medium is confined in a 
room where the air is foul with carbonic acid 
gas, though it may be injurious to the health of 
those living in the body; but out of this foul air 
the spirits can find the best materializing mat- 
ter to build up visible forms; and it has been 
discovered by photographing that blue and 
violet light is the best for taking pictures, as it 



43 



is the most harmonious and slowest, as it fills 
all space and gives color to the sky and a fine 
effect on the picture, and has none of the an- 
tagonistic properties of the red and yellow rays 
which impede the action of the spirits; so all se- 
ances should be held in rooms lit up by blue 
or violet rays of light. The artist requires the 
same kind of rays so that it will fix the picture 
on the plate, from which he is able, by chemic- 
als, to transfer to another. And all the spirit 
requires is the proper conditions and similar 
lights to form a body that is visible to the 
natural eye. The picture is there and the spirit 
is there; but it requires the proper materials to 
bring them out, so that they become visible to 
the mortal eye. And in this way spiritual pict- 
ures are taken, as well as those of living per- 
sons. And if pictures can be taken by one 
kind of light and not another, why not materi- 
alization be effected likewise.? 

All light has a dematerializing effect. Spirits 
find it much easier to form in the dark, as all 
plating and impressions of the photographer 
have first to be set in the dark. The picture 
is given by the light shaded with blue screeiis 
and skylight; and, as the photographer has to 
use his dark cabinet to set the image in the 
glass, so has the medium to use the dark cabi- 
net to enable the spirit chemist to build up and 
plate anew the spirit with visible matter before 
it can appear in the light. 

The spirit, having once lived in the flesh, 
has learned the laws of the flesh, and knows 
how to control even the organisms of other and 
living bodies. The spirit is the life principle of 
the body. It is what steam is to the engine — 
which is dead matter; but, as soon as the steam 
is turned on the piston moves backward and 
forward, giving life to the whole: so, when the 
spirit leaves the body, it is cold, dead matter; 
but when the spirit enters, it at once gives life 
and animation. The spirit and the body are 
nucleus around which all matter clings, so that 
when a spirit wishes to materialize it has but 
little to do but draw the required matter from 
others and the air, and in that way it makes 
itself a visible body. 

The human body is always giving off atoms 
of matter through the pores of the skin so that 
every seven years, and some say, every nine 
months, the whole of the body has passed away 



and has been replaced by nevy matter. "We 
live," says Herbert Spencer, *' by constantly 
dieing." These atoms given from the body, 
especially from the medium's, is used by the 
spirits, who understand their chemical nature, 
and recompose them around the spirit which is 
a perfect form to build upon. Like copper and 
zinc, under a strong current power or a circle 
of spirits, which induces them to yield those 
atoms, which the spirit chemist employs to ma- 
terialize forms by the use of elements in the air 
which are as simple and well understood by the 
spirits as electrotyping is by mortals, so that the 
spirit can accomplish in a few minutes what in 
the flesh requires years to build up, the differ- 
ence being one of time and of permanency. 
It is a process of galvanizing over the spiritual 
body with visible matter, that enables them to 
show themselves to us in the flesh. As the 
spiritual body is invisible to the natural sight, 
but can be seen only by the clairvoyant, who 
sees with the vision of the soul, to enable the 
spirit to be seen by the mortal eye it must clothe 
itself in material matter that reflects light. 

The hand being full of nerves more readily 
materializes than any other part of the body, 
and this accounts for the many hands often 
seen at a seance, and is generally the first part 
of the body that materializes. 

Materialization is the highest realization of 
modern Spiritualism. It brings the living face 
to face with those who were supposed to be 
dead. They tell us that they still live, and 
have only shed off the outward husk, the mor- 
tal body. It is the strongest evidence of the 
immortality of the soul. The body is only one of 
the stages of development of the embryotic con- 
ditions of the soul, which had passed through the 
lower forms of life during gestation, that, like 
the eagle and the butterfly, has broken through 
the shell of mortality and mounts on wings into 
the sky, no longer feeding on the gross things 
of the earth, but draws its life and vitality from 
the ether. 

The same knowledge and control of occult 
forces, including the vital forces which enable 
a fakir temporarily to leave and then re-enter 
his body. Jesus, Apollonius and Elijah were 
able to recall their several subjects to life; made 
it possible for the ancient hierophants to ani- 
mate statues and cause them to act and speak. 



44 



It is the same knowledge and power which 
made it possible for Paracelsus to create his hu- 
munculi; for Aaron to change his rod into a ser- 
pent and a budding branch; for Moses to cover 
Egypt with frogs and other pests, and the same 
Egyptian theurgist of our day to vivify his pig- 
my mandragora, which has physical life but no 
soul. It is no more wonderful that upon present- 
ing the necessary conditions Moses should call 
into life large reptiles and insects than that, un- 
der like favoring conditions, the physical scien- 
tists should call out the small ones which he 
names bacteria. 

Nearly all the forms of phenomena of the an- 
cients wonder-workers, recorded in sacred and 
profane histories, are produced now by spiritu- 
al mediums. I have seen bodies moved, hang 
suspended in the mid air; instruments play by 
laying in the hands of the medium; have felt 
the weight of invisible hands; heard voices in 
the air over my head; musical instruments flying 
around in the room; flowers fresh with the dew^ 
on them, handed out of a cabinet in a well lit 
room; have had deceased friends and relatives 
described to me, so perfect, and their names 
given so that there could be no mistake; I have 
been tilted out of a chair b> the touch of the 
hand of a little cousin; I have seen a dozen 
ghosts or spirits walk out of a room that I had 
sealed up; I have seen them in the broad day- 
light rise up, come to me, and have felt their 
pulse — sometimes they had pulse and at other 
times they had none; I have conversed with 
them, they told me who they were and where 
they had departed this life, but they would not 
admit that they were dead, but said they had 
passed to a higher life. 

I have had communications from my dear 
departed friends, written on a slate, held in my 
own hand under the table, the medium only 
touching it. The signature of my mother was 
so perfect that, had I not known she was dead, 
I would have been willing to swear to its genu- 
ineness in a court of justice. 

I once called upon Dr. Slade, the celebrated 
medium, to see if I could get some new light, 
and on reading an article to him on " Evolu- 
tion," it met the approbation of a spirit present 
expressed by rapping on the table; but, when I 
read where Darwin says, "Young birds do not 
make as good nests as old ones," it rapped 



" no," and so it differed with him on that sub- 
ject. Every now and then it would pat me on 
the thighs, which were under the table, approv- 
ing the article. It was in broad daylight, and I 
am certain it was not done by any visible per- 
son, as the medium was the only person in the 
room. He then placed one hand in mine on 
the table, and took a slate, wiped it clean, 
placed a piece of pencil on it, and took another 
slate and laid it over it, then held the two slates 
up to the side of my ear. I could hear the 
pencil scratching like it was writing; soon it 
gave three taps, and then he opened the slate, 
and one whole side was written over in a plain, 
legible manner. The following is a correct 
copy: 

Dear Sir: Your subject is one that is little 
understood. Man has an intellectual nature, 
and also intuition, so have animals; but, un- 
less these two are wedded, he is not a success- 
ful man. Often intellect has taken on the aid of 
intuition; and, again, intuition has controlled 
man with the guardiance of intellect. Some 
men fail when animals do not, he by throwing 
his intuition aside and glories in his intellect, 
and he often makes greac mistakes in life. An- 
imals have no pride in intellect, and trust more 
to intuition and do not fail. 

A. W. Slade. 

The signature vras that of his deceased wife. 

The wonderful test given by Mr. Slade con- 
vinced the honest German scientist, Zollner, 
that there were forces unknown to the scientist, 
which he called transcendental physics. 

Mr. Zollner, professor of physical astronomy 
at the University of Leipsic, one of the most 
renowned schools of learning in Europe, made 
many tests in a scientific way in broad day- 
light, in the presence of other professors, with 
the physical manifestations of Henry Slade, 
forced him to the conclusion that these wonder- 
ful manifestations could not be explained by the 
ordinary laws of physics. That the tying of 
knots in a string, with both ends fastened and 
sealed and held in his and Slade's hands on the 
table, while the other part of the string hung 
under the table. Communications were written 
on a book slate which they had purchased, and 
had been sealed up by them. They heard the 
slate-pencil scratching like a thing of life be- 



tween the slates. After giving three raps they 
removed the seals, opened the slate and both 
sides were written all over and signed. Fear- 
ing there might be something wTong they then 
prepared other slates of a similar kind, and 
when Mr. Slade put his hands on them, the pencil 
began to scratch, and when it rapped three 
times they took the same slates and carried them 
home and opened them, and there were other 
messages written to them. 

Wooden rings tied together with a string and 
placed under the table were carried and placed 
around the upright part of the candle-stand, 
which no mortal could do without taking off 
the tops of the stand. 

Coin was passed down through the table and 
fell on the slate, while the pencil passed up and 
entered into the box in which the money had 
been placed and sealed up. A candle-stand 
rose up and disappeared, presently it descended 
from the ceiling and rested upon the table 
around which they weie sitting. 

A bowl of flour was placed on the floor un- 
der the table and they felt hands touching them 
on their legs. On inspection there were the 
marks of hand prints in the bowl of flour and 
the same finger marks on their pants. They 
were certain that Mr. Slade did not do it, as 
his hands rested on the table all the time, and 
there was no flour in them. 

That hand and foot prints on prepared paper 
were made through the slate, though it was 
locked up in a box. That a screen that was 
made ot strong wood that would require a dy- 
namic force of two hundred and ninety-eight 
hundred weight, or more than the combined 
strength of three hundred giants to rupture, was 
torn apart by an invisible power. That lights 
appeared and disappeared; that it rained on 
them and wet their clothes in the room; and 
many other strange things that could not be ex- 
plained by any known law of physics. These 
tests were through and beyond any trickery. 
They called in the king's juggler to assist them, 
and he was unable to detect any fraud or trick, 
or make any explanation how it was done. 

All of which goes to prove the apparent pen- 
etration of matter, and also of the existence of 
the fourth dimension, by which this invisible 
power can produce these strange phenomena. 
So these learned savans of the renowned school 



of Leipsic were forced to the conclusion that 
there was an intelligent power that could do 
those things which were beyond their knowl- 
edge of physical forces. That there were such 
things in existence that did not come within 
the known laws of length, breadth and thick- 
ness, which is all that we can possibly know of 
matter, and in these dimensions it includes all 
its possibilities. But in the fourth dimension, 
says ZoUner, " we have another aspect of the 
case; one in which our system of geometry is 
at fault, and its axioms cease to apply there; 
matter is subjected to transcendental laws and 
conditions are apparently reversed." 

Professor ZoUner, in a letter to Mr. William 
Crookes, who had also investigated the phe- 
nomena of Spiritualism, said: " By a strange 
conjunction our scientific endeavors have met 
in the same field of light and of a new class of 
physical phenomena, which proclaim to the 
astonished mankind, wath assurance no longer 
doubtful, the existence of another material and 
intelligent world. As two solitary wanderers 
on high mountains joyfully greet one another at 
their encounter, when passing storm and clouds 
veil the summit to which they aspire, so I 
rejoice to have met you, undismayed cham- 
pion, upon this new province of science. To 
you, also, ingratitude and scorn have been 
abundantly dealt out by the blind representa- 
tives of modern science and by the multitude 
befooled through their erroneous teachings. 
May you be consoled by the consciousness 
that the undying splendor with which the names 
of a Newton and a Faraday have illustrated the 
history of English people can be obscured by 
nothing; not even by the political decline of 
this great nation; even so will your name sur- 
vive in the history of culture, adding a new or- 
nament to those with which the English nation 
has endowed the human race." (Transcenden- 
tal Physics, page 27.) 

The late exhibitions of physical force by 
Miss Lulu Hurst throughout the United States, 
is enough to convince all fair-minded people 
that there is an invisible force, produced by the 
laying of her hands upon a chair that defies 
the strength of a dozen strong men. It flung 
men around as though they were feathers. I 
found it imi)ossible to hold an umbrella over 
my head while she had but one finger touching 



46 



the handle. Her manager announced that she 
disclaimed any knowledge of the power that 
produced the force. Her father informed me 
that the power was spiritual force, as he had 
been so informed by the spirits, but that it was 
not policy to so announce it from the stage, 
owing to the credulity of a great many people 
who are prejudiced against the spiritualistic 
theory. I was satisfied as soon as I took hold 
of the umbrella that it was the same force that 
could enable my little cousin to hurl me from 
a chair twenty-five years ago. And here let me 
state, that not long since I saw the same cousin 
— now married and the mother of several child- 
ren — and she informed me that she had long 
since lost that power. 

I know of several other mediums who have 
lost the power to produce manifestations, hav- 
ing been pursuaded by the church that it was 
the work of the devil. My little cousin, Lillie 
Dobbins, was a strong physical medium, and 
could make a dining-room table follow her 
around like a dog by touching it with the tip of 
her finger, and make it stand on one leg and 
flap the folding leaves, like the wings of a 
bird. I asked what spirit it was moving the 
table ? It called for the alphabet, and as the 
letters were repeated, the name of Samson was 
rapped. I then asked it to turn the house over. 
It replied, in the same way, that it might kill 
us. I then said, " Throw me out of the chair." 
and immediately I felt myself moved by an in- 
visible force, that hurled me out without an ef- 
fort. 

I had another cousin, Carrie Dameron, who 
was a rapping medium, and I tested her in every 
way I could, to solve the mystery. It invaria- 
bly rapped out the name of departed relative 
or friend, who would not admit that they were 
dead, but only passed to a higher state of ex- 
istence. 

One of the most peculiar tests I had occurred 
one night, when the negro boy, who made fires 
in the dwelling, being anxious to see the mani- 
festations, had crawled under the bed, after 
making the fire, and unknown to any of us; 
but the fact of his presence was revealed by 
the attendant spirit rapping out the words, 
"Dick is under the bed." The poor boy 
came out affrighted, saying, " That is the devil, 
sure, for no one know'd I was dar." 



Here let me state that that dear cousin has 
long since passed to the spirit land; and she 
often comes to me and gives me assurance that 
what transpired while living is more than real, 
and that spiritualism is true. 

It is evident that this is a force that has intel- 
ligence; that can come when desired and depart 
when not wanted, and is capable of com- 
municating with man through raps, tipping 
of tables, independent slate writing and in 
other ways. It can give names and incidents, 
of which no person present has any thought or 
knowledge. While some of these com- 
munications may be erroneous, on the whole 
they are generally truthful; but it is not safe to 
place too much reliance in their knowledge of 
the future, for they, like mortals, are fallible, 
and they make many statements that are false, 
for they have only advanced intelligence, and 
many are not so wise as those living in the 
flesh; and it is hard to say who is at the other 
end communicating. It may be the spirit's 
true name or it may be some mischievous boy's 
spirit or some lying spirit imposing on human- 
ity. They are there as they were here — no 
wiser, no better; as they depart this life, so they 
wake up over there in the spirit land. 

Saint Paul said: "We must try the spirits 
before we believe them." So nothing should 
be taken for granted, until it shall have been 
thoroughly tested; even then it must be taken 
with a great deal of allowance, for we little un- 
derstand this mode of communicating. Even 
the telegrapher requires us to repeat the mes- 
sage before he will stand responsible for the 
correctness of its transfer. 

This mode of communication, like telegraph- 
ing, requires time to investigate and under- 
stand. We are not able to go over to the other 
side to compare notes and then return. We 
have to take it for granted that w^hat words they 
send back are correct; and, so far, these state- 
ments have been of so confused and uncertain 
a nature that many have been led to the belief 
that it must be something other than the spirit 
of our departed friends; at best it is hard for us 
to understand how anything, or any intelligence 
can exist without a physical body, capable of 
making itself manifest to our five senses; yet, 
we hear the raps and the scratching of the pen- 
cil, but we cannot see the power that moves it. 



47 



There are so many frauds and deceptions in 
the world that it becomes all to be very careful 
that they are not imposed upon. It may be 
a question whether it is best for ignorant masses 
of humanity to investigate it, as they are liable 
to be misled and placed under the control of 
evil rather than good influences, but as man- 
kind grow wiser and better they will learn to 
look upon it as their future existence, and will 
prepare and fit themselves for that advanced 
stage of development. It will rob the grave 
of its terrors and make death only the gateway 
to a higher and better existence in the vast un- 
seen universe that encompasses us. When it 



is understood that this planet is only a germi- 
nating world, and that our future happiness de- 
pends on how we live here, and that it has 
much to do in fitting us for the life to come, 
that is eternal; that we can not escape the 
burden of our own sins or shift them on the 
shoulders of another, it will make us more care- 
ful how we act and treat our fellow-man, for 
we are all brothers on the same road to the 
spirit land, where we will have to make repara- 
tion for all the wrongs that we have done to 
each other. There the law of compensation 
and restoration is beyond a technicality or 
doubt of court or jury. 




CHAPTER V. 



INSPIRATION AND INSPIRED MEN, SAVIORS, MEDIATORS AND MEDIUMS. 



Inspiration is the natural influx of the divine 
truth into the human soul, and its degree is 
determined by character and capacity, and 
it is not confined to the teachings of any reli- 
gious truth. Even the old Testament teaches 
that certain men were inspired of God to work 
in linen and brass and cedar and gold. Shake- 
speare, Angelo, Socrates and Epicteus have 
just as good a claim to be inspired of God as 
any of the Jewish prophets or writers in the old 
or new Testament. 

All light is from the sun, whether it shines 
from moon or planet; whether it be reflected 
by brook or mirror; whether it be a stray, bro- 
ken beam to prison-cell; whether it flare in the 
gaslight or glow in the coal of our grate, all 
light is first or last just so much sunlight; so all 
truth, of whatsoever kind or degree, is from 
God. 

'* Pure inspiration is confined to no particu- 
lar person, age or nation; it is as common and 
universal as the spirit of God. Everything that 
possesses life, no matter m what kingdom or 
stage of development, is to the same degree 
the recipient, exponent, prophet and beneficiary 
of the universal spirit of the Supreme Being. 
Everything that moves anywhere in the illimita- 
ble territory of Nature sustains a relation more 
or less intimate to the spirit which animates the 
world. Every creature enjoys a living commu- 
nion with the all-animating principle; and the 
relations which subsist between the little worm 
and the creation of worlds are just as intimate 
in principle as those enjoyed by man. Hence, 
all things receive the spirit of God and bathe 
in it, and express it in the external in exact pro- 
portion to their capacity and absolute require- 
ments. The human soul is a far richer soil for 
the f^rowth and nurture of heavenly sentiments 



than any ground around Jerusalem, which may 
have been blessed and sanctified by the tread 
of Christ and the prophets." 

Man's eternal organism is closely joined to 
the material world, but far more closely is his 
spiritual nature joined to that principle which 
enlivens and energizes the universal whole. 
There is nothing between man and the bending 
heavens. He can bare his head beneath the 
dome of the living temple, and there is no ob- 
struction intervening which can shut him from 
a contemplation of the gorgeous creation, and 
if he will but bare his spirit by removing 
his pride, selfishness, ignorance and seusuality, 
which circumscribe and entomb its fair pro- 
portions, he will find nothing between him and 
the enjoyment of true inspiration. 

The flovver is truly impressed by the light and 
warmth of the sun, because it possesses within 
itself the essential qualities and properties of 
beauty and development, ^and hence incorpo- 
rates the descending elements of vitality in its 
own minute structures. It is not merely a ves- 
sel for the immediate reception and impartation 
of light and warmth, but it receives those ele- 
ments, subjects them to a chemical analysis, 
and distributes the various properties to the 
elaboration, development and sustenance of 
its own particular individuality; and then in 
accordance with the immutable principles of 
distributive justice and harmony, the flower 
breathes forth its precious odors with which it 
loads the passing breeze, and thus imparts pleas- 
ure to many loving beings, while it reflects back 
the rays of the sun in beautiful colors that 
adorn Nature with their richest hues. So it is 
with man; like every flower he is a recipient of 
this kind of inspiration. That is to say, the 
influx of thoughts, facts and principles into the 



49 



soul, which that particular mind may appropri- 
ate; first to its own welfare and enlightenment 
and then shedding it abroad, as the sun spreads 
its rays over the earth for the benefit and in- 
formation of those who next require the pab- 
ulum. 

In all ages of the world revelations of various 
kinda, and of different degrees of importance, 
have been given to mankind, through the in- 
spiration of prophets, sages, philosophers, seers 
and mediums. It all comes from the same 
source; it all bears the same earmarks, and it 
all tells us to be good and virtuous, if we wish 
to be happy. The Bible is full of it — begin- 
ning with Moses and the burning bush, and 
ending with Saint John in a trance on the Isle 
of Patmos. Nor was it confined to the Jews 
alone, but was taught to the Hindoos, Persians, 
and Chinese, by Brahma, Zoroaster and Con- 
fucius, long before the Jews were a' nation. 
The writings and teachings of these men to the 
whole Eastern world was that sin would ulti- 
mately be abolished, that everlasting right- 
eousness would be brought in, and that then 
the good deity, Ormuzd, would rejoice with joy 
unspeakable forever and ever, for having tri- 
umphed over his evil brother, Ahrmian (the 
devil). 

These pure men and women of all ages and 
nations seemed to breathe this inspiration from 
on high. They have spent their lives, and may 
have died in the cause of lifting up man from 
his low animal nature and pointing him to a 
purer and better life beyond the grave. They 
have been scoffed at and spat upon by those 
in high places, and many have been put to 
death; yet, afterwards they have been deified, 
and churches and temples have sent up their 
spires to honor their sainted names. 

There are many men and women of modern 
times that have acted and been controlled by 
this divine influence, who, had they lived in 
past ages, would have been deified for their 
works; Luther, Calvin, Joan of Arc, the Seer- 
ess of. Provost, A. J. Davis, and. others, who 
have revealed many truths concerning the con- 
nection between the natural and spiritual world, 
and between soul and body. And there are 
the names of Baron d'Holbach, Charles Fou- 
rier and Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish 
philosopher and psychologist, whose writings 



\n press us with that inspiration. Sweden- 
borg claimed to have seen and conversed with 
angels, as did Abraham and the patriarchs of 
old; and if there is any truth in the one, why 
not believe the other, for it is more recent and 
better authenticated. 

In the writings of Plato w^e see the spiritual 
identity of man and a future life, and his phi- 
losophy reveals some very important laws of 
Nature, and many psychological truths; but it 
is mixed up with a vast amount of heredi- 
tary superstition and absurdity. In Xeno- 
phon we find a higher degree of beauty, truth 
and profitableness, for no mind was ever more 
deeply impressed with the truths of immor- 
tality than his, because his convictions came 
from the gushing aspirations of the living prin- 
ciple within; and his philosophy contains more 
substantial reasons for the immortality of the 
soul than can be found in any portion of the 
old or new Testament. 



Jesus Christ. 

Of the teachings of Jesus Christ in the new 
Testament, the sermon on the mount is the 
most sublime ever spoken by mortal man. His 
whole acts seem to flow from a *pure heart and 
a refined and spiritual elevation that has caused 
the whole Christian world to deify him as a 
son of God, sent into the world to redeem sin- 
ners. 

In him Nature worked her best and purest 
material, and the influx of the divine spirit was 
so great that he possessed the highest develop- 
ment of physical and mental powers, and he 
stood forth a model of form, purity and good- 
ness. But the beauty of his natural principles 
and the simplicity and purity of his life and its 
teachings have been obscured by the darkening 
influence of theological interpretations, which 
have engrafted it on Roman paganism and 
shrouded his life and acts in a halo of supersti- 
tion, and invested him with power that he 
never claimed to possess. Though possessed of 
great healing and clairvoyant powers, he only 
used them for the purpose of doing good, and 
the many useful and beautiful moral precepts 
taught by him in the new Testament should 
cause us to regard him with deep veneration, as 
one of the greatest reformers of the world, and 
to ascribe any higher powers would be doing 



50 



him injustice, for he did not profess to be a son 
of God in any other sense than that he was a 
branch on the great tree of hvmanity; and he 
did not profess to be directed and impelled by 
any other spirit than the divine love, the germ 
of which dwells in the heart of every being, 
undeveloped. And to this divine principle ex- 
isting in others, but not so fully developed, he 
appealed so feelingly, in order that its qualities 
might advance to that degree of refinement in 
love and wisdom which he possessed. For he 
was a perfect type of a man, but anything more 
than that tends to injure and detract from 
his goodness and greatness, as it is reasonable 
to suppose that if the birth and life of Christ 
had been of such a miraculous character as 
some wish us to believe, other profane histori- 
ans than Josephus would have mentioned it, 
and he would have given an account of the 
so-called miraculous manifestations; therefore 
it is evident that much that has been written on 
this subject was the work of over-zealous or 
designing priestcraft. 

But in this age of enlightenment and reason 
it is full time that these vile superstitious false- 
hoods were swept away and Christ be allowed 
to stand forth in the true light of a great re- 
former who has founded a church that has done 
more to elevate down-trodden humanity than 
any other; therefore he stands at the head of 
all others as a great and good man, possessed 
of that divine power of looking into minds and 
reading the hearts of men; and, like all great 
and true men, willing to suffer crucifixion and 
dearth for principles that would embalm his 
memory in the hearts of millions to come after 
him, and raise mankind from an animal plane 
of existence to a happier and better home be- 
yond the grave in heaven. 

St. Paul says that God made Jesus *'a little 
lower than the angel," Hebrews, iii, 3 and 9, 
" and a little higher than Moses;" "For this 
man was counted worthy of more glory than 
Moses." It is evident that St. Paul never con- 
sidered Christ more than a man "full of the 
spirit of God." Being all good-man he was 
therefore a god-man, as good and god are sy- 
nonyms in the old Saxon language. It is evi- 
dene that he was filled with the divine substance 
that elevates man above the low, groveling ideas 
of animal existence. It is evident that he was 



mortal and preferred to live. He died because 
he could not help it, and only, when betrayed, 
he prayed with fervor, until " his sweat was as 
it were great drops of blood," that the bitter 
cup might he removed from him. He might 
have made himself invisible by the use of his 
mesmeric power over the bystanders, as he had 
done before when threatened with violence, as 
is claimed by Eastern adepts, and made his 
escape; but, seeing that his hour had come, he 
said, " Not my will but thine be done." Luke 
xxiv, 34. 

It is evident that Jesus was initiated into all 
their mysteries. In King's "Gnostics," page 
145, " there is an account of a sarcophagus, 
the panels of which were bas-reliefs represent- 
ing the miracles of Christ; one, the resurrec- 
tion of Lazarus, in which Christ appears beard- 
less and possessed of a wand, in the guise of a 
necromancer, whilst the corpse of Lazarus is 
swathed in bandages exactly as an Egyptian 
mummy." And Jesus is always represented 
with long, waving and curling hair parted in 
the middle, after the fashion of the Naza- 
renes. 

The Talmud, speaking of the " Nazaria, or 
Nazarenes" (who had abandoned the world 
like the Hindoo Yogis or hermit), " calls them 
a sect of physicians or wandering exorcists. 
They went about the country, living on alms 
and performing cures," fasting and praying 
and performing miracles, like Christ and his 
disciples. 

The first Christians were, doubtless the Ebi- 
onites, and in this we follow the authority of 
the best critics. " There can be little doubt 
that the author (of the Cle^nentine Hanilus) was 
a representative of Ebionitic Gnosticism, which 
had once been the purest form of primitive 
Christianity. * * * ^^d who were the 
Ebionites.? The pupils and followers of the 
early Nazarenes — the Kabalistic Gnostics who 
derived their doctrine from the oriental philos- 
ophy. These Nazarenes were a despised sect, 
on account of their different religion to that of 
the jews (Codex Nazara'.ns).'' 

Renan shows the Ebionites numbered among 
their sect all the surviving relatives of Jesus, 
and some of whom denounced him. John the 
Baptist was his cousin and precursor, and was 
the accepted savior of the Nazarenes and their 



51 



They lived over and beyond the 



prophets 
Jordan. 

There is not a word in the new Testament 
that goes to show that Jesus was ever actually 
regarded by his disciples as God. Neither be- 
fore or after his death did they pay him divine 
honors. Their relation to him was that of dis- 
ciple, and " Master" was the name by which 
they addressed him, as did the followers of Py- 
thagoras and Plato. He never claimed he was 
*'God," but said he was the *'son of man," 
the son of God meaning that all men were sons 
of God; and when he spoke to Mary Magdalen 
at the tomb, '* Jesus saith unto her, * Touch 
me not; I am not yet ascended to my father; 
but go to my brethren and say unto them I 
ascend to my father and yoiLr Father, and to 
my God and your God,'" John xx, 17, which 
implied on his part a desire to be considered on 
a perfect equality with his brethren, nothing 
more; that it was his astral soul or spiritual 
body that she beheld and that he did not wish 
her to touch him. 

They looked upon him as a great prophet, a 
holy, inspired man, a vehicle used by Christos 
(messenger), through which the spirit of God 
made himself manifest to man; and in Luke 
iii, 22, "And the Holy Ghost (spirit) descended 
in a body shaped like a dove upon him, and 
voices came from heaver, which said. Thou 
art my beloved son, and in thee I am well 
pleased." In another place it says, ''Jesus, 
full of sacred spirit, returned from Jordan and 
the spirit led him into the desert." These pas- 
sages are enough of themselves to convince any 
unprejudiced mind that he was a great medium 
and seer, through whom the spirits manifested. 
It is evident that Christ understood the 
magic art, when he says, "Go ye, therefore, 
and teach all nations, * * * and lo, lam 
with you always, even to the end of the world," 
(that is, his spirit) and the apostles performed 
miracles in his name after he was crucified. 
The prison doors were opened to Peter and 
the jailor was affrighted. It is claimed that the 
keys of heaven were left with St. Peter. Baron 
Bronson shows that the word Patar or Peter 
was a mystic word which "locates both master 
and disciple in the circle of initiations, and 
connects them with the secret doctrines as they 



Egypt," and that the ancient " Book of the 
Dead," found in the tombs, dating back 4,500 
years B. C., had this word written in hierogly- 
phics, and Jesus knew the secret meaning of 
the word bestowed by him on Simon, who was 
thereafter called Peter, whom he initiated into 
all the mysteries, who continued to perform 
miracles and wonderful things, and this power 
is still claimed by the Church of Rome. 

Christ said, "Why callest thou me good? 
There is none good but one; that is God.'' 
"And whosoever shall speak a word against the 
son of man shall be forgiven him; but unto 
him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost 
it shall not be forgiven." Luke xxii, 10. Is this 
the language of a God, of the second person in 
the trinity who is identical with the first } 

Say the Hermes, "No one of the gods, no 
man or lord can be good but God alone." 
Christ made use of the same expression. "To 
be a good man is impossible, God alone pos- 
sesses this privilege," says Plato. John the 
Baptist did not consider Christ a god, when he 
baptized him (John i, 6 and 30), " This is he 
of whom I said. After me cometh a 7nan." 
Speaking of himself Jesus says, " You seek to 
kill i?ie, a man that hath told you the truth 
which I have heard of God." John viii, 40. 
And even the blind man of Jerusalem, when 
speaking of who had healed him, said, "A 
man that is called Jesus made clay and anoint- 
ed mine eyes." John ix, n. 

Christ in all his sayings is in a Pythagorian 
spirit. When not verbatim repetitions, his 
code of ethics is purely Buddhistic; his mode 
of action and walk of life Essenian; and his 
mystical mode of expression, his parables and 
his ways those of an initiate, whether Grecian, 
Chaldean or Magian (for the " perfect," who 
spoke the hidden wisdom, were of the same 
school of Archaic learning the world over); it 
is difficult to escape from the logical conclusion 
that he belonged to the same body of initiates. 
Secret societies and sects extended all over the 
East at that time, and there is no doubt that 
Jesus Christ was an initiate. 

The learned philologists have been able to 
trace this coming messiah far back in the sacred 
books of the ancient Hindoos, written in the 
Sanscrit; which is the mother language of the 



were taught by the hierophants of ancient ' Aryan race. They had their trinity and they 



had their savior; so did the Persians and so did 
the ancient inhabitants of Mexico. When the 
latter country was invaded by Cortez, the priest 
said, "The devil was ahead of us; how could 
' these people know of Christ and the Virgin 
Mary unless the devil had told them of it." 

The Christian Adventist undoubtedly got his 
idea from the Hindoo, for it says in their sa- 
cred book, " When Vishnu appears for the last 
time he will come as a savior." According to 
the opinion of the Brahmans he will appear 
in the form of a horse, Kalki. Others claim 
he will be mounting it. This horse is the en- 
velope of the evil spirit, and Vishnu will mount 
it, invisible to all, until he has conquered it, 
for the last time, then he will become visible 
^S^" and all mankind will become good and then 
^ comes the millenium." The Bible speaks of 
^ Christ coming again on a white horse, j* 
^ : The Christian virtues inculcated by Jesus in 
the sermon on the mount are nowhere exempli- 
fied in the Christian world. The Buddhist as- 
cetics and Indian fakirs seem almost the only 
ones that inculcate and practice them, and 
these the Christians call heathen and send mis- 
sionaries to teach them morals that they have 
derived from them, revamped, and under new 
names given to their gods, they try to teach 
that which they do not practice. 

In the history of man, there appears to have 
been many saviors, who died to redeem him 
from sin, to teach him higher and nobler aspi- 
rations and fit him for the life to come. There 
are three that stand out more prominent than 
all the rest who have a history; they are the 
founders of churches that have millions of 
members who bow down and bless their names 
and through them seek to gain admission into 
heaven — Chrisna, Gautama Buddha and Jesus 
of Nazareth. 



Chrisna, 

The savior of the Hindoos, is the oldest. His 
epoch, on which European science fears to 
commit itself, is uncertain; but the Brahmanical 
calculations fix it at about 6,877 years ago. He 
descended of a royal family, but was brought 
up by shepherds. Man had, perhaps, advanced 
in civilization to the stage of shepherds;. he is, 
theiefore called the shepherd's god. 

His birth and divine descent are kept secret 



from Kansa, an incarnation of Vishnu, the 
second person of the trinity. Chrisna was 
worshiped at Mathura, on the river Jumna. 
(See Strabo, Arrian and Bampton.) 

Chrisna is persecuted by Kansa, tyrant of 
Madura, but miraculously escapes. In the 
hope of destroying the child, the king has thou- 
sands of male innocents slaughtered. Chris- 
na's mother was Devaki or Devanagui, an im- 
maculate virgin, who had given birth to eight 
sons before Chrisna. He is endowed with 
beauty, omniscience and omnipresence from 
the time of his birth; produces miracles, cures 
the lame and the blind, casts out demons, 
washed the feet of the Brahmans, and, descend- 
ing into the lower regions, hell, liberates the 
dead, and returns to Vaicoatha, the paradise 
of Vishnu. Chrisna was the god Vishnu in 
human form — he crushes the serpent's head. 

Chrisna is unitarian. He charges the clergy 
with ambition and hypocrisy to their face, di- 
vulges the great secrets of the sanctuary — the 
unity of god and the immortality of the soul. 
Tradition says he fell a victim to the vengeance 
of the clergy. His favorite disciple, Ajuna, 
never deserts him to the last. There are cred- 
ible traditions that he died on a cross (a tree) 
nailed to it with arrows. The best scholars 
agree that the Irish cross at Taum, erected long 
before the Christian era., is Asiatic. (See 
Round Towers, p. 296.) Chrisna ascends to 
Swarga and becomes Nirguna. 

Chrisna stands at the head of the Brahman 
religion. It is spread over India and has about 
sixty millions of believers, who have degenera- 
ted into caste, leaving to the Brahma 01 the 
highest class, full control of all religious teach- 
ing in the vedas. And these lower caste, like 
the ignorant and superstitious of all countries, 
have degenerated or never rose to that intelli- 
gence, so they were unable to understand the 
symbols and sublime truths that were taught in 
the mythical figures of the vedas, but became 
worshipers of the idols tliat were used to rep- 
resent the true religion. 

Krishna or Chrisna was worshiped as an 
avotard of Vishnu, who was one of the sun 
gods of the ancient Hindoos, and by his reincar- 
nation in Chrisna he became a redeemer, who 
would listen to the prayer of man; and that 
the gods, to execute anything for the benefit of 



53 



man, he had to become incarnated in some 
animal or man. Vishnu, it is said, became in- 
carnated ten times; the first time in a fish, the 
second time in a tortoise, the third time in a 
boar, and the remaining seven times were in 
human forms. 

If we will only search for the true essence of 
the philosophy in both Manu and the Kabala, 
we will find that Vishnu is the Adam Kadmon, 
the expression of the universe itself; and that 
his incarnations are the concrete and various 
embodiments of the manifestations of the 
" Stupendous Whole." " I am the soul which 
exists in the hearts of all things, and I am the 
beginning and the middle and also the end of 
existing things," says Vishnu to his disciple in 
Baghavad-Ghita, chapter X, page" 71. 

" I am xA.lpha and Omega, the beginning and 
the end. * * * j ,^^-i-, ^Y[q first and the 
last," says Jesus to John, in Rev. 1-6: 17. 
And if we will closely examine the new Testa- 
ment we can see the ear-marks of the reincar 
nation of Chrisna in Jesus Christ, who has been 
made another avatar of the same reincarnation 
of Vishnu, the redeemer of the Hindoos. 

It is thought by some of the Oriental writers 
that the wise men spoken of in the new Testa- 
ment that came from the East, guided by the 
star to Bethlehem, were Brahmin priests. 

Gautama Buddha. 

Gautama Buddha, the savior of the Buddists, 
Tartars and Chinese, according to European 
science and the Ceylonese calculations, lived 
about 2,540 years ago. He was the son of a 
king. His first disciples were also shepherds 
and mendicants, and when he dies his spirit 
reincarnates into that of a new-born babe. His 
mother was Maya, or Maya deva (great Mary), 
married to her husband, yet an immaculate vir- 
gin. He is endowed with the same powers and 
performs wonders like that of Chrisna, and he 
also crushes the serpent's head, /. e., abolishts 
the Naga worship as fetishism; but, like Jesus, 
makes the serpent the emblem of divine wis- 
dom. He abolishes idolatry, divulges the mys- 
teries of the unity of God and Nirvana, and is 
persecuted and driven out of the country, gath- 
ers thousands of believers around him and dies 
with his faithful and beloved disciple and 
cousin, Ananda. He escaped crucifixion. At 



the hour of his birth there were thirty-two 
thousand wonders performed; the clouds were 
stopped in the sky, rivers ceased to flow, flow- 
ers ceased to bear, the birds remained silent 
and full of wonder, the animals stopped eating, 
the blind saw, the lame and dumb were cured, 
and all nature remained suspended. 

He is represented in many temples as sitting 
under a cruciform tree, which is the " Tree of 
Life." In another image he is sitting on Naga, 
the Raga of serpents, with a cross on his breast. 
Buddha ascends to Nirvana (heaven), while 
Jesus ascends to paradise. 

In the two preceding characters we can see 
that they are much alike to that of Jesus, and 
would naturally come to the conclusion that one 
was taken from the other, though the two former 
were born of royal parentage, which they for- 
sook to become teachers of the humble and 
low born. That their mothers were immacu- 
late and had holy conceptions; that the king 
sought to slay them; that the child was en- 
dowed with wonderful powers and great intelli- 
gence. They all performed miracles, cured the 
lame and the blind, cast out demons, washed 
their disciples' feet, descended into hell and 
liberated the dead. 

That Chrisna and Jesus both died on the 
cross; one transfixed by arrows to a tree 
and the other was nailed to a cross; that 
they arose and ascended to heaven. So strik- 
ing and alike are these three characters that one 
is forced to the conclusion that they are the 
same, and out of the dim rays of the past that 
reflect Chrisna comes the mythical outlines of 
the mythical Jesus, from whose teachings were 
drawn those of the historical Christos; for we 
find that under one identical garment of poetical 
legend lived and breathed three real human fig- 
ures. The individual merit of each of them is 
brought out in rather stronger relief than oth- 
erwise by the same mythical coloring, for no 
unworthy character could have been selected 
for deification by the popular instinct, so uner- 
erring and just when left untrammeled. 

If they were three distinct personages the 
similarity would impress us with the truth of 
the Buddhist faith: the reincarnation of the 
same spirit in three distinct forms, and differ- 
ent periods of the world's history. It may be 
contended that Chrisna and Buddha were char- 



54 



acters taken from that of Jesus of Nazareth. 
But ample proof is at hand to show that either 
of these religions extends far back into the night 
of time beyond the birth of Christ or the be- 
ginnmg of the Christian era. 

They all taught a spiritual religion involving 
about the same principles, but their followers 
have perverted their sublime teachings and 
turned them to suit their own interest, to en- 
slave man and load his mind down with ignor- 
ance and superstition, and teach him to worship 
idols and symbols instead of the one living 
God. 

The tendency in all ages has been to deify 
their great and good men when dead, and to 
make saints out of them, which has, no doubt, 
given rise to a multiplicity of gods and demi- 
gods, similar to those of the old Greek and Ro- 
man mythology, who at one time were men, 
and these sages, statesmen and warriors became 
the tutelar deities of their country, to whom 
the people made offering as a mark of rever- 
ence and to get them to use their influence in 
their behalf, which has tended to confuse the 
idea of one universal God, and to give to that 
God a human form, as these tutelar deities and 
guardian spirits and administering angels were 
once human beings and have evolved under the 
law of progress and development to higher 
spheres. And as they still retain their form 
when seen by seers, prophets and mediums, it 
is natural to conclude that the supreme God, 
the ^iX'sX prime cause^ was an anthropomorphous 
being — a man-like god — and as the Bible says 
God made man in his own image, therefore 
man was like unto God, when in reality the 
Jehovah of the Jews or old Bible was only the 
tutelar deity of that race of people-, and not 
the supreme God, as it is time and again said in 
the same book that no man had ever seen the 
face of God. 

The three personalities, Chrisna, Gautama 
and Jesus, were so far above the common herd 
of mankind that they appeared to be true gods, 
each in his epoch, and they have left to human- 
ity three religions, built upon the imperishable 
rock of ages, that have withstood the assaults 
of time and the attacks of skepticism, for man, 
Hci":i n religious animal, must have some God 
v. -rsliip, some one to pray to and do lioiii- 
i.-e, .nd ncn liavin^ a c^nceijtion of the sublime 



truths, readily mistakes the symbols or the idols 
for the real person whom it is intended to rep- 
resent, falls into idolatry and superstition. 
Thus the sublime teachings of these three great 
and good men have become adulterated so that 
it is hard to recognize them as they are now 
taught by their disciples and priests. But 
through the skill and learning of Max Muller 
and other philologists who have been able to 
trace them back to their origin in the Sanscrit 
language, we can see that they all had one com- 
mon origin in the teachings of Christos, who is 
the founder of the spiritual faith of the Aryan 
race. "Yet," says Muller, "we find the his- 
ry of Gautama copied word for word from the 
Buddhist sacred books into the golden legend, 
names of individuals are changed, the place of 
action — India — remains the same in the Chris- 
tian as in the Buddhist legends." 

" The sacred scriptures of Hindoo stole 
Brahma, the sacrificer, who is at once both 
sacrificer and victim;" it is Brahma, victim in 
his own son Chrisna, who came to die on earth 
for our salvation, who himself accomplishes the 
solemn sacrifice (of the Sarvameda), and yet it 
is the man Jesus as well as the man Chrisna, 
for both were united to their Christos; they are 
therefore the same, identical persons, or two 
reincarnations of the same spirit, which is in 
accordance with the Buddhist faith. The rein- 
carnation of the Llama of Thibet, an adept of 
the highest order, may live indefinitely. When 
the mortal casket wears out he reincarnates 
himself (the Ego) in the body of a new-born 
babe, and he begins his existence in a new 
body. This may appear strange, yet Jesus 
speaks of the second birth, after the natural 
birth — born in the spirit. This might have ref- 
erence to the will force freeing its astral soul 
so that it might communicate with spirits in the 
spirit land. 

Jesus Christ tries to imbue the hearts of his 
audience with scorn for wordly wealth, fakir- 
like unconcern for mammon, love of humanity, 
poverty and chastity. He blesses the poor in 
spirit, the meek, the hungry and the thirsting 
after righteousness, the merciful and peace- 
makers, and, like Buddha, leaves but a poor 
chance for the proud cnste to enter into the 
.iig o wi iicavcfi. jL,vcry .^uru ot his ser- 
mon is an echo of the essential principles of 



55 



monotheistic Buddhism. The ten command- 
ments of Buddha are found in an appendix to 
the Pratimoksha Sutra (Pali-Burman text) and 
are elaborated to their full extent, as in 
Matthew. 

So great is the snnilarity of the teachings of 
these two great reformers that the Orientalist 
will not admit that they are different persons, 
but say that they are the teachings of Buddha. 
And so much alike are some of the religious 
services that a Portuguese Catholic missionary, 
who was seiit to Cochin China in the sixteenth 
century, wrote back home saying that the devil 
had been ahead of him and introduced the 
Catholic service among them. 

Apollonius of Tyana. 

Apollonius of Tyana, a contemporary of 
Jesus of Nazareth, was, like him, a religious 
enthusiast and founder of a new spiritual school. 
He was less metaphysical and more practical, 
yet less tender and perfect in his nature, and he 
inculcated the same quintessence of spiritual- 
ity and the same high moral truths. He con- 
fined himself to the society of the rich while 
Christ confined himself to that of the poor. 
He was the friend of kings and moved among 
the aristocracy, and be was born rich. Never- 
theless they were both miracle-workers, healing 
the sick, raising the dead, etc., yet his miracles 
are more wonderful and varied and better at- 
tested. Materialism denies the fact in both 
cases, but history affirms it. Apollonius, who 
is represented as one of 'the sixteen saviors that 
mankind has had, is claimed by some to have 
been like Christ, crucified and rose from the 
dead, and appeared to his disciples, but history 
does not bear out the assertion. 

He performed supernatural cures and, like 
the Spiritualist of the present day, proclaimed 
to the people that he was heaven-ordained. He 
confounded the most learned scholars of Rome 
and Greece. He ate no animal food, discarded 
woollen clothes, wore his hair long and well 
combed, washed his face, kept his body sweet 
and clean, refused to associate with women, 
lived single like Jesus, the Shakers and Catho- 
lic piiests; was opposed to offering up sacrifi- 
ces, did not think much of oral prayer, believed 
in free speech, taught a new religion, honor, 
equity, personal purity and universal education. 



and performed miracles like Pythagoras, who 
was a bright medium and claimed to get his 
wonderful powers and knowledge from on high. 
He could perform a magnetic or psychologic 
cure, and was believed to be a god or a son of 
a god, or else a veritable Beelzebub, the prince 
of devils. 

When Apollonius desired to hear the " small 
voice " (the spirits), he would wrap himself up 
in a fine woollen mantle, on which he stood 
upon both feet, after making certain magnetic 
passes and offering an invocation well known to 
the adept. Then he drew the mantle over his 
head and face and his translucid or astral spirit 
was free, which was similar to the account the 
Bible gives of Elijah: " When Elijah heard it 
he wrapped his face in his mantle and stood in 
the entering of the cave, and behold there came 
the voice." 

Apollonius went to Hindostan in search of 
the wisdom of the Brahmins. He was brought 
into the presence of the chief sage of the East, 
who addressed him in the following language: 
"It is the custom of others to inquire of those 
who visit them who they are and for what pur- 
pose they come; but with us the first evidence 
of wisdom is that we are not ignorant of those 
who come to us." Thereupon this clairvoyant 
recounted to Apollonius the most notable events 
of his life, also his father and mother, and the 
incidents of his journey and who were his com- 
panions and all about him. He was awed by 
the knowledge they possessed and earnestly 
sought to be admitted into their secrets. 
After the usual length of waiting he became 
duly illuminated and returned and astonished 
Europe with his piercing clairvoyance and won- 
derful powers in healing and knowledge of the 
occult force. 

His power of divining the future was won- 
derful. While lecturing at Ephesus he sudden- 
ly stopped and exclaimed, *' Strike! stiike the 
tyrant! Domitian is no more; the world is de- 
livered of its bitterest oppressor!" At that day 
and hour Emperor Domitian was assassinated 
at Rome, and he saw it though hundreds of 
miles distant. 

Pythag^oras. 

" Pythais, the mother of Pythagoras, was 
overshadowed by the specter or ghost of the 



m 



god Apollo, who afterwards appeared to the 
husband and informed him of the divine origin 
of the child about to be born." 

** Hercules, or Alcide<5 as he was called by 
the Greeks, was always claimed to be the son 
of the god Jupiter by a human mother Alemena, 
the wife of a Theban king." 

" Apollo, Mercury and Adonis were all 
claimed to be incarnations, each being ' sons 
of God ' born of mortal woman; each being 
for a time incarnate on earth for the benefit of 
mankind; each destroyed and received up into 
heaven again, as mediators between the Most 
High Zeus, the Great Unknown and Unknow- 
able, and sinful men." 

Parkhurst, in his Greek Lexicon, says: " It 
is well known that by Hercules was meant the 
sun or solar light, and his twelve famous labors 
referred to his passage through the zodiacal 
signs." And that the Garden of the Hesperi- 
des was the Garden of Eden, and the serpent's 
head was crushed beneath the heel of Her- 
cules; all of which goes to show that the an- 
cient theology taught by Moses was the same 
as that which existed in India, Egypt, China, 
Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Arabia, Asia Minor 
and Palestine; with the Greeks, Romans, Celts, 
Gauls, modern Europeans, Australians, ancient 
Mexicans and Peruvians, which had its origin 
with the pre-historic man long before the conti- 
nents took their present shape. The legends 
among the savage as well as the civilized man, 
point to the antique garb, with its shreds and 
patches of ever increasing theological compli- 
cations, for the benefit of modern fiinaticism, 
and the edification of those who are content to 
take the word of priestcraft, instead of think- 
ing and investigating for themselves. 

Esculapius. 

There is a splendid description given of the 
great savior, Esculapius, in Ovid's Metamor- 
phoses: 

" Once as the sacred infant she surveyed. 
The god was kindled in the raving maid," 
And thus she uttered her prophetic tale: 
* Hail, great physician of the world, all hail! 
Shall heal the nations and defraud the tomb; 
Swift be thy growth, thy triumph's unconfined; 
Make kingdoms thicker and increase mankind; 



* Pythoness or sybil. 



Thy daring acts shall animate the dead, 
And rouse the thunder on thy guilty head; 
Then shalt thou die, but from the dark abode 
Shall rise victorious and be twice a god.' " 

" Strabo informs us that the temples of Es- 
culai)ius were constantly filled with the sick, 
and that tablets were hung all over the walls, 
describing the cures effected by T/ie Savior.'" 
There is still a remarkable fragment of one of 
these tablets extant, and exhibited by Greuter 
in his collection. It was found in the ruins of 
a temple of Esculapius, which gives an account 
of two blind men restored to sight by Escula- 
pius in the open view, and with the loud accla- 
mations of the peo[)le acknowledging the power 
of the god." 

iEschylus. 

Of /Eschylus, under the name of Prome- 
theus, "Seneca and Hesiod say that he was 
nailed to an upright beam of timber, to which 
were affixed extended arms of wood, and this 
cross was situated near the Caspian Straits." 
" At the final exit of this god the whole frame 
of nature became convulsed; the earth shook, 
the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, 
and in a storm which seemed to threaten the 
dissolution of the universe, the solemn scene 
closed, and the savior gave up the ghost." 

Xenophon. 

There can be no doubt that Xenoi)hon was 
a man of noble as})irations and a believer in the 
immortality of the soul. Speaking of sleep, 
he says: "Nothing s*o nearly resembles death 
as sleep, and nothing so strongly intimates the 
divinity of the soul as what passes in the mind 
on that occasion, for the intellectual principle 
in man, during this state of relaxation and free- 
dom from external impressions, frecjuently looks 
forward into futurity and discerns events before 
time has yet brought them forth, a plain indica- 
tion of what the i)Ower of the soul will here- 
after be, when the soul shall be delivered from 
the restraints of its present bondage." 
Cicero. 

Cicero, the great orator and statesman, was 
also a defender of those unvarying principles 
that govern the universe and was endowed with 
a consciousness of the truth, which caused him 
to discard superficial theories that then shroud- 



57 



ed the public mind in the form of heathen n)y- 
thology. He was a great lover of nature, and 
his mind was lifted far above the herd of ignor- 
ant, superstitious humanity, which in all ages 
of the world is ready to put to death those no- 
ble defenders of truth and justice who teach a 
doctrine in opposition to that which they pro- 
fess, 

Cicero says: "For my own part, I feel my- 
self trans[)orted with the most ardent impa- 
tience to join the society of my de[)arted 
friends. I ardently wish, also, to visit those 
celestial worthies of whose honorable conduct 
I have heard and read much, or whose virtues 
I have myself commemorated in some of my 
writings. To this glorious assembly I am speed- 
ily advancing, and I would not turn back in 
my journey, even on assured condition that 
youth like that of Pelius should again be re- 
stored. * * * /\p(] after all, should this, 
my persuasion of the soul's immortality prove 
to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing 
delusion, and I will cherish it to my last 
breath. I am well convinced, then, that my 
dear departed friends are so far from having 
ceased to live, that the state they now enjoy 
can alone with propriety be called life." 

Socrates. 

Socrates is as much, if not more, of an au- 
thority in the scientific and literary world than 
many of the Christian and so-called sacred 
writers, lie testified in the midst ol all his 
wisdom and learning to the continued presence 
of his daemon or guardian angel, who warns 
him of danger, predicts to him events that are 
coming, reveals to him the state of the future 
life and makes the gateway of death one of 
glory and grandeur. 

Some of the ancient writers of the church 
claim that Socrates, the Athenian philosopher, 
was a good man. As Christ was a teacher to 
the Jews, so Socrates was a tencher of the true 
philosophy to the Gentiles. " And those who 
lived according to the Logos," says Clemens 
Alexandrinus, " were really Christians, though 
they have been thought to be Atheists, as Soc- 
rates and Heraclitus were among the Cheeks, 
and such as resembled them;" " for God," says 
Origen, "revealed these things to them and 
whatever things have been well spoken." 



In Socrates we find those sublime truths that 
removed the fear of death, and in his conversa- 
tions we have the best reasons ever given by 
man of the immortality of the soul. The man- 
ner of his death and the composure with which 
he swallowed the poison is only ecjualed by the 
tragic end of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Zoroaster. 

Zoroaster, the founder of the fire-worshi[)ers 
of Persia, was born under somewhat similar 
circumstances to those of Christ, though his 
parents descended from kings. "His mother, 
when pregnant, saw in a vision a being glorious 
as Djemschid, who assailed the Deves (the 
Persian evil spirits) with a sacred writing, before 
which they fled in terror. The interpretation 
given by the magician was that she should be 
favored among women by bearing a son to 
whom Ormuzd (good — god) would make known 
his laws and who should spread them through 
all the East. x'Vgainst this son every power of 
evil would be in arms." That after many trials 
and much persecution he should triumph, and 
at last should ascend to the side of Ormuzd in 
the highest heaven, and his foe sink into Ahri- 
mana and hell. 

King Darius sought like Herod to kill him, 
and on lifting up his sword to hew the child in 
pieces, his arm was grasped by some unseen 
power and was withered to the shoulder, which 
so frightened the king that he dropped the 
sword and fled in terror. They then stole the 
child from his mother and cast him into the 
flames; there he lay peacefully on his fiery 
couch as if in his cradle; where he was foimd by 
his mother (I)ogdo), who carried him home un- 
harmed. Many efforts were made to kill him 
but he always escaped unharmed. He was 
placed in the way of wild bulls and wolves and 
fed on [)oisoned food, yet he escaped without 
injury. 

At thirty years of age his mission began. He 
left his native home and visited the court of 
Iran. Being warned in a vision he turned aside 
into the mountains of Albordi, where he re- 
ceived many revelations and was lifted up into 
the highest heaven, where he beheld Ormuzd in 
all his glory encircled by a host of angels. He 
was there fed on food as sweet as honey, which 
opened his eyes so he saw all that was passing 



in the heavens and on the earth. The dark- 
ness of the future was made to him as day, and 
he learned the inmost secrets of nature — the 
revolution of worlds, the influence of stars, the 
greatness of the six chief angels of God, the 
felicity of the beatified, and the terrible condi- 
tion of the sinful. He descended into hell, 
and there looked on the evil one face to face. 
Finally he received from God the divine gospel 
(Zend-Avesta) and by repeating a few verses of 
it he would put his enemies to flight. 

Celestial fire was also given him to be kept 
continually burning, and he at last overcame 
his enemies, and the king became a convert to 
his doctrines. Their moral teachings are pure 
and beautiful, and his ideal of the Divine One 
high and just; but in the course of centuries 
his followers became idolatrous and the sacred 
fire became more and more an object of vener- 
ation, and the sun, the loving emblem of their 
sacred fire, was their object of worship. They 
finally degenerated into what is known as fire- 
worshipers; licentiousness desecrated the tem- 
ples and human sacrifices were at last offered. 
This religion lasted for over twelve centuries, 
when it was displaced by that of the Koran, 
with the exception of some Parsees or sun-wor- 
shipers in India. 

He says, speaking of overcoming evil, " But 
though he has been brave in battle, killed wild 
beasts and fought with all manner of external 
evils, if he neglect to combat evil within him- 
self, he has reason to fear that Ahriman and 
his deves will seize him." 

Sosioch. 

Sosioch, the Persian savior, is also born of a 
virgin, and at the end of time he will come as 
a redeemer to regenerate the world, but he will 
be preceded by two prophets, who will come to 
announce him (see King's translation of the 
"Zend-Avesta" in his " Gnostics," page 9). 
Then comes the general resurrection, when the 
good will immediately enter into this happy 
abode — the regenerated earth — and Ahriman 
and his angels (the devils) and the wicked will 
be purified by immersion in a lake of molten 
metal. * * * Henceforward all will enjoy 
unchangeable happiness and, headed by Sosi- 
och, ever sing the praises of the Eternal One." 

The above is a perfect repetition of Vishnu 



in his tenth avatar, for he will throw the wick- 
ed into the infernal abodes, in which, after 
purifying themselves, they will be pardoned, 
even those devils which rebelled. 

•'This Sosioch, or mediator, is much like 
the Messiah of the Jews, and here was the deep 
and real point of unison between the two reli- 
gions, and this explains the meaning of the star 
which was seen in the East and which guided 
the magi of Zoroaster to the cradle of Christ." 
(See "Ten Great Religions," page 209.) 

Confucius. 

Six hundred years before the birth of Christ 
the Chinese philosopher Confucius, in his book 
"Lun-Yu," chapter V, 15, enunciated the 
Golden Rule: "Master consists in having an 
invariable correctness of heart; and in doing 
towards others as we would that they should do 
to us." 

And in this noble character we find the same 
lofty spirit that rose above the groveling herd 
of humanity, whose time is absorbed in getting 
food to support a starving body. Though he 
has not been deified he has left a deep impres- 
sion on the morals of his people, so that he 
is as much an object of veneration as a savior 
who might have died upon a cross for a reli- 
gious idea. He has received the title of phi- 
losopher, a term far more appropriate than that 
of savior. 



Mr. Kersey Graves, in his work entitled 
"Sixteen Crucified Saviors," says there have 
been at least thirty-four avatars or god-men. 



The following is a list: 



9- 
10. 
II. 
12. 

13- 
14. 

15- 
16. 

17- 



Krishna or Chrisna, of Hindostan. 

Buddha Sakia, of India. 

Salivahana, of Bermuda. 

Zulis, also Osiris and Horus, of Egypt. 

Odin, of the Scandinavians. 

Crita, of Chaldea. 

Zoroaster and Mithra, of Persia. 

Baal and Taut, of Phoenicia. 

Indra, of Thibet. 

Bali, of Afghanistan. 

lao, of Nepaul. 

Wittoba, of Billongonese. 

Thammuz, of Syria. 

Atys, of Phrygia. 

Xamotis, of Thrace. 

Zoar, of the Bowzes. 

Adad, of Assyria. 



59 



i8. Deva, Tat, and others, of Siam. 

19. Alcides, of Thebes. 

20. Mikado, of the Sintoos. 

21. Beddru, of Japan. 

22. Hesus, or Esos and Bremilla, of the 
Druids. 

23. Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls. 

24. Cadmus, of Greece. 

25. Hil and Teta, of Mandaites. 

26. Gentaut and Quaxalcote, of Mexico. 

27. Universal Monarch, of the Sibyls. 

28. Tschy, of Formosa. 

29. The Logos, of Plato (The Word), 

30. Holy One, of Xaca. 

31. To and Tien, of China. 

32. Adonis, of Greece. 

;^$. Ixion and Quirinius, of Rome. 

34. Prometheus, of Caucasus. 

"Each of these saviors was born at mid- 
winter and their births have excited the jeal- 
ousy of some kingly tyrant, and, though them- 
selves of royal descent, were born in caves or 
mangers, forced to pass their infancy in obscur- 
ity and not unfrequently cause the ' massacre of 
all the innocents' in the district in which they 
are born. They are all miracle- workers, and 
are generally connected with some snake story, 
in which is represented the evil power which is 
adverse to them. They generally perform 
about the same class of miracles, preach the 
highest morals of the age in which they appear, 
and are benevolent and act the part of great 
reformers, and oppose the abuses of the times. 
They feed multitudes, cast out devils, heal the 
sick; finally they succumb to the powers of 
evil that oppose them; die a violent death, very 
often by crucifixion, descend to the lower re- 
gions to rescue lost souls, reascend to heaven 
and thenceforth become judges of the dead, 
mediators and redeemers of men, who offer up 
vicarious sacrifices to God for the sins of the 
people." 

"These good-men or god-men," says Mr. 
Graves, "all appear to point to one origin in 
India." " How the ancient Mexican could 
have conceived the idea of a savior," says the 
priest who accompanied Cortez in his conquest 
of the country, " I cannot imagine unless the 
devil gave them the information." 

So all nations have had their saviors; they 
make him comply with their ideal and color 
them black, red or white, as may chance to 



be the color of the race to which they be- 
long. 

"Many of the ancient statues of the god 
Buddha in India, have crisp, curly hair, with 
flat noses and thick lips; nor can it be reasona- 
bly doubted that a race of negroes formerly 
had pre-eminence in India." It was the opin- 
ion of Sir William Jones that a great nation of 
blacks (not certainly, though possibly, negroes) 
formerly possessed the dominion of Asia, and 
held the seat of empire at Sidon (more proba- 
bly Babylon). These must have been the peo- 
ple called by Mr. Maurice, Cushites or Cuthites, 
described in Genesis, and the opinion that they 
were blacks is corroborated by the translators 
of the Pentateuch, who constantly render the 
word Cush by Ethiopia. The figures of the 
ancient Hindoo gods found in cave temples is 
very different from the present race. This 
points back to the remote age when all man- 
kind were black, as is claimed by some ethnol- 
ogists. The color of the first human beings 
was black. 

To comprehend these saviors we must look 
upon them as great and good men who breathed 
the divine breath of inspiration, who by their 
pure lives lived in harmony with the spirit world 
and drew their wisdom from the soul of the 
universe, which is overflowing with truth and 
goodness. These saviors were sensitives and 
were able to connect themselves with it, and to 
draw from it some of its secrets and divine 
truths. 

Each wave of thought, whether of good or 
evil, that vibrates from the heart or mind goes 
out by the silent system of spiritual laws, and 
inflluences all minds within the radius of its 
control. The spiritual beings around us are 
moved and affected. It reaches out wave after 
wave, and is met by a response from the spirit- 
ual agencies that come down from the great 
central mind (God). There is no limit to the 
light and knowledge that is locked up in the 
spirit world, if man would place himself en 
rapport with it. It only requires that he should 
seek it earnestly; it only requires that he should 
trust it; it only requires that he should submit 
and have faith and live in harmony with nature, 
and do right and good will follow his earnest 
wishes and prayers. 



CHAPTER VI. 



RELIGION; ITS ORIGIN, GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT. 



As the savage slowly evolved from the ape- 
like man, his brain became larger and more 
developed in the region of the moral and 
reflective organs. His forehead assumed a 
higher and broader proportion, the crown rose 
in the region of the organs of benevolence and 
veneration. Man alone has this prominence on 
the crown of the head; all other animals are 
deficient. While many animals possess a back 
skull largely developed, man alone has a fore- 
head and a highly curved crown, and in the 
lowest there is but a slight elevation. The 
prominence in this region of the head is the 
most marked feature between the benevolent, 
pious and good man and the low and bad man. 
Therefore religion is dependent on the brain 
development in the region of the crown of the 
skull. 

The moral and intellectual brain was the last 
to evolve; as man was forced to think and rea- 
son these organs expanded and by slow degrees 
man became a reasoning, thinking animal. 
Man's religion is high or low as he recedes or 
approaches the lower animals; low and de- 
graded races have a low and degraded religion, 
and as man ascends in the scale of intelligence 
his religion becomes broader and more liberal. 
It is the ignorant and narrow-minded that con- 
stitute the over-devout fanatic and the religious 
tyrant and bigot who is always a great stickler 
for creeds and dogmas. God, creation and 
religion are things too broad, too high and too 
noble to quarrel about or to burn men, women 
and children because they entertain other ideas 
than those entertained by the orthodox believ- 
ers of the time. 

The most of the animals know the difference 
between day and night. Some know the sea- 
sons of the year; the squirrel, for instance, 

60 



lays up its store of nuts for the long winter, 
and many birds migrate south every fall. All 
animated nature is governed by instinct, while 
man is governed by reason and intuition — the 
latter in animals is called instinct. In man it 
is elevated and guided by reason. What we 
call our first impression is this feeling of intui- 
tion that makes us religious, because it is the 
inner whispering of our nature that admonishes 
and forces us to admit that there is a future 
state, that the life princi[)le never dies. Ani- 
mals may have it, but they have not developed 
a reason or an intelligence so that they can ex- 
press it, or perhaps feel it; yet they all cling to 
lite and dread to die, they know this life but 
not the life to come. 

All strange phenomena that man cannot un- 
derstand, he is ready to believe is produced by 
some supernatural power; it is a mystery and 
he is ready to ascribe it to some marvelous 
cause. The mind that is ignorant of these 
causes has a vague and indefinite idea of it; 
therefore he is ready to believe it is produced 
by some unseen being, and as he has learned 
from experience there are good and bad results, 
so is he ready to ascribe it to good or bad 
spirits. 

So by degrees he became a superstitious ani- 
mal and was ready to conclude that all phe- 
nomena that he could not understand was the 
work of some good or evil spirit, according to 
the manner of its visit and its interest for good 
or evil. This idea gave rise to good and evil 
spirits, gods and demons; all of which tended 
to create a religious feeling within his nature. 
As he receded from the beast this feeling was 
increased by the development of those organs 
that tended to make him a social, moral being, 
grateful for the blessings conferred upon him by 



61 



the bountiful hand of nature, which is ever 
ready to assist him to rise. 

No other animal has a religion. It may be 
said to be one of the marked distinctions that 
place man above the brute creation. No mon- 
keys or apes have any reverence for a supreme 
being. "Man is the first animal," says Pro- 
fessor Fowler, " that has the organ of venera- 
tion," which he places at the crown of the 
skull. Some men have little or no reverence, 
and the want of this development makes them 
atheists and disbelievers in a supreme being 
and a future existence. 

The moral and religious organs are the last 
that develop in the child, and over them the 
skull is last to harden. Man alone possesses 
this craniological development, and the lower 
the man or the lower the race the less the brain 
is developed, and the harder is the infant's 
skull on the crown of the head, as in the case 
of the negro child and the inferior races and 
apes. The phrenologist and ethnologist can 
almost tell the moral and intelligent status of 
the man by the shape of his skull and to what 
race of people he belongs. All prehistoric 
skulls of man and the lower order of animals 
possess less brain capacity than those ot more 
recent periods. The mammoth elephantus pri- 
mogehitus of the tertiary period, though twice 
as large as that of the modern elephant, pos- 
sessed a less brain capacity. As the world has 
grown older animals have grown less and their 
brain larger. 

So religion is a matter of growth and devel- 
opment as well as of muscle and brain, and 
is dependent on the brain for its existence, 
so this will account for the universal idea that 
man has of a future state of spirits, angels and 
gods. As his brain increases he has a higher 
standard for his god. He first makes himself 
an image out of stone, mud or wood; then he 
gives it the form of a man, which is the highest 
conception of a form that he can conceive, and 
here he generally stops and becomes a man- 
worshiper. 

It is this indwelling principle that forces up 
the savage to that of the civilized, moral, social 
and intellectual man, and as these faculties are 
developed man ascends and progresses, and the 
higher the condition on earth the higher will be 
his condition in spirit life, for it follows the 



law of progress, and as spirits progress so will 
man, for they are only higher beings of intelli- 
gence, and are only freed from the body, while 
man is the undeveloped spirit, chained to the 
body, only to be freed at death; therefore they 
act and react upon each other, and spirits attract 
like spirits, whether in or out of the body, 
so that spirits are attracted to earth and spirits 
of mortals ascend to the spirit spheres, when in 
proper condition, and this interchange is ever 
going on between them, ascending and de- 
scending. The spirit of the savage descends 
to the savage on the earth and the spirit of the 
savage on earth ascends to their spiritual sphere. 
So they learn of a spirit land, and this is their 
religion. So it is with the Hindoo or with the 
Christian, and whatsoever the condition of man 
is on earth, he has his spiritual sphere and the 
spirits from that sphere communicate wdth him, 
for spirits that are not in harmony cannot min- 
gle. "Like attracts like, whether on earth or 
in the spiritual world." 

In this way all nations have their religion, 
and they get it through kindred spirits, so that 
Spiritualism is the origin of all religions, as it 
is the only way man can get a knowledge of the 
spirit world, for all religions are full of spirit- 
ism, and when carefully compared we are forced 
to admit that it has all come through the same 
channel, and its standard depends on the me- 
diums and the spirits that communicate and the 
race to which they belonged. Some men are 
more progressed on earth than some spirits who 
have been in the spirit land thousands of years. 

Religion, therefore, should be progressive; as 
men, spirits and angels progress, their knowledge 
of nature and God becomes enlarged and their 
intelligence becomes expanded, and so should 
religion become more liberal. While science 
has found out many of the secrets of the phys- 
ical laws and benefited mankind, it has refused 
to look into the metaphysical laws that relate to 
mind, soul or spirit, and still allows man to 
bow down and worship the religions of Moses 
and Christ, who had no idea of steam or elec- 
tricity, but who traveled about in dugouts or 
on a camel's back. What we want is a religion 
in keeping with the age, and the spirits demand 
it, for they have progressed. 

Religion has its origin in the mind, like that of 
thought and perception. As soon as man had 



62 



evolved to such a condition of intelligence that 
he could connect a train of thought and had 
language to express his ideas, he became a reli- 
gious animal, and had higher aspirations than 
his animal desires. He looks forth into the fu- 
ture and believes that there is something within 
him that will exist forever; that he will live in 
the spirit long after the body has decayed and 
returned to the dust. This thought is peculiar 
to man and has tended to elevate him and force 
him to overcome his animal nature and aspire 
to reach a higher moral condition. As his 
moral and intellectual organs push up the front 
and crown of the head he becomes more hu- 
mane and intelligent, he has more respect for 
the rights of others, and he tries to subdue his 
animal passions, which in time he is able to 
place under the control of the moral, reasoning 
faculties of the mind; but to arrive at that con- 
dition it costs every one a struggle. Some in- 
herit more of the vicious animal nature than 
others, while it is natural for some to be good, 
for they are born so; but the great mass of man- 
kind inherits so much of the animal nature that 
it takes a lifetime to get it under control, and 
it may never be done. 

A Hindoo maxim says: " Brahma inscribes 
the destiny of every mortal on his skull, and the 
gods themselves cannot avert it." That is, 
everybody has their destiny in their skulls and 
if he has not the moral and intellectual nature 
given to him by birth, he cannot make a wise 
and moral man out of himself; but that he can 
improve himself and his condition, and his 
brain will develop in that direction by use; 
that brain grows and expands like the muscles 
of the legs and arms by use; that there was 
never a mind, however great or small, but by 
proper study and training might have learned 
more. It is a bottomless well that can never 
be pumped dry. The mind is a battery con- 
nected with infinity; the more perfect the bat- 
tery the greater is its capacity to draw from 
anima mundi (the mind or soul of the universe), 
which is inexhaustible, it is a part of the deity, 
a spark, a divine scintilla that has gone out 
from the universal mind, which is called God. 
Therefore all well balanced minds have a high 
regard for truth, justice, love and virtue, and 
hate vice. 

This love of virtue and truth struggles to 



elevate mankind and better the condition of all; 
it stands out prominently in the patriot and the 
philanthropist, they who in all ages of the world 
have struggled to overcome ignorance and prej- 
udice. They have been defeated time and 
time again, but their influence is felt for ages. 
It will take many generations to remove the 
patriotic feeling of a Washington from the 
hearts of the American people, for all love a 
pure, good and patriotic man, though they may 
not have manhood to imitate his virtues. Still 
it all has its effect on society and slowly pushes 
up the masses from their low, animal natures 
and selfish desires. 

When we examine the religion of the savage 
and that of civilized man, we see much simi- 
larity and traces of one mingled in the other. 

When the Zulu sacrifices a bullock and offers 
up his prayer he says: '* There is your bullock, 
ye spirit of my ancestors; I pray for healthy 
body that I may live comfortably, and thou 
treat me with mercy," (mentioning the name of 
his dead ancestor). 

A Khond, when offering a sacrifice to the 
earth goddess, says: " By our castle, our flocks, 
our pigs and our grain, we procured a victim 
and offered a sacrifice; do you enrich us; let 
our herds be so numerous that they cannot be 
housed; let children so abound that the care of 
them shall be too much for their parents. 
* * * We are ignorant of what is good for 
us; give it to us, what is best." 

The Zulu says the spirit of a dead man de 
parts from his body and becomes an ancestral 
ghost. The widow will tell how the spirit of 
her husband came back in her sleep and up- 
braided her for not taking care of the children. 
The son will describe how his father's ghost 
stood before him in his dreams. 

The Mandan Indian woman will talk for 
hours to her dead husband or child. 

A Chinaman is bound to announce any fam- 
ily event, such as a wedding, to the spirits of 
his ancestors. They not only talk to the ghost 
of their dead kinsfolk, but offer them food. 

A Russian peasant will often put crumbs of 
cake behind the pictures of the saints, believing 
that the souls of their forefathers are creeping 
around behind it. 

The feeding of the dead is still kept up in 
Brittany; on All Souls* Day they will put cake 



m 



and sweetmeats on the graves, and will leave 
fragments on the supper table all night for the 
souls of the dead of the family, who will come 
to visit them. Flowers are now left on the 
graves as a substitute. 

John Chinaman believes, when he offers 
a sacrifice to his dead ancestors, of roast pig 
and rice, that the flavor or essence of the viands 
ascends and the spirit of his departed father 
sniffs up the odors as they rise, which pleases 
him and he will shower blessings down on 
his dutiful son, while he is at liberty to take 
home the cold food, the gross and material that 
cannot be eaten by the immortal spirit, but 
which is good for himself and his family to 
make a feast upon. 

Classic literature abounds in instances where 
the horse and clothing were burned with the 
owner. The burning of Patroklas with the 
Trojan captives and their horses and hounds, is 
an instance; and when he came back to the 
sleeping Achilles, he tried to grasp him with 
loving hands; but the soul, like smoke, flits 
away below the earth. 

Hermotinos, the seer, used to go out of his 
body, until at last coming back from a spirit 
journey, found that his wife had burned his 
corpse on a funeral pile, and that he had to 
become a bodyless ghost. 

Herodotus tells us about Scythian funerals, 
and how Melissa's ghost came back shivering 
because her clothes had not been burned with 
her. 

To the present day the good wife of the Hin- 
doo mounts the funeral pile, believing that her 
spirit will accompany her husband to the other 
world. 

Among the ancient Peruvians the wife of the 
dead prince would hang herself in order that 
she might continue in his service. 

The leading of the dead general's horse in 
the funeral procession had its origin in the an- 
cient custom of killing the horse at his grave 
and burying it with him, so that its spirit would 
accompany him to the spirit world and there be 
his war horse. As late as in 1 781, at Treves, 
when General Friedrich Kasimir was buried 
according to the rites of the Teutonic order, 
his war horse was killed at his gra've and buried 
with him. This custom is still kept up by the 
savages, and the King of Dahomey decapitates 



the head of a slave when he wishes to send a 
message to some departed friend, and a heca- 
tomb of wives and women are slaughtered on 
his grave when he dies, to accompany him to 
the spirit land. 

Religion has its origin in the heart; it is a 
part of man's intuitional nature; it comes from 
the spiritual rather than the rational, yet it 
must have reason as well as faith to give it sup- 
port; it must have works as well as belief, and 
belief cannot stand long with reason and facts. 
The want of positive facts, such as can be de- 
monstrated by a scientific test, is one cause of 
the growth of materialism. To some the test 
of Spiritualism is sufficient, but to others it is 
not. The positive materialist rejects that evi- 
dence and disturbs the subtle currents that 
bring those facts, which are given by a class of 
sensitives. Scientific minds, such as Profes- 
sors Wallace, Crookes and Zollner, are able 
to appreciate them; but the cold materialist, 
like Tyndal and Spencer, reject all spiritual 
manifestations. 

There are two classes of religious persons: 
one moved by love may be called amo, the 
other the credo. The latter are interested only 
in creeds and forms and outward show, who 
are narrow-minded and fanatical and have in 
all ages filled the world with strife, war and dis- 
sensions. They are prompt to go to church on 
Sunday, when they appear very devout. They 
may be called Sunday Christians. The amos, 
on the other hand, make religion consist of 
doing good; they care little about creeds and 
dogmas, and they try to promote peace and 
happiness. They use their belief as a means, 
while the credos stand firm on it as a finality 
that is to take them to heaven. 

Of the credo Morris says: ** It is possible to 
be delighted with a doctrine and yet have no 
just conception of its practical bearings; to 
revel in the thought of a blessing, and yet not 
discern its force as a moral motive; to have an 
intense admiration of the principles of equity 
and love, and yet be a stranger to both the 
theory and practice of them in varied relations 
of life and the world." 

The highest idea of a religious man is to do 
good and to have a regard for what is right and 
just between himself and his fellow man. The 
observance of the Golden Rule is his standard; 



64 



a just appreciation of the bountiful gifts of na- 
ture which are given to him to use and enjoy. 
Pleasure in every form is good in itself; it is 
the great allurement that God has given to his 
children to enjoy and not to abuse. 

All wisdom and philosophy are resolved into 
one simple principle: that happiness and intel- 
ligence depend upon the moral development of 
our religious nature; without it man is but a 
little above a brute. An immoral genius is no 
genius, simply a man of talent, such as Lord 
Byron; but in Shakespeare and Milton we have 
the highest moral purity, one capable of giving 
a full expression of the soul. 

Two men may stand on the same spot, to 
one everything is beautiful and lovely, while to 
the other it may all appear a barren waste. 
One looks on the bright side of the picture, 
while the other looks on the dark side of it. 
One has hope, the other despair; one is an op- 
timist, the other a pessimist, who sees evil in 
everything, " that this is a vile world of sin 
and sorrow." 

Light and heat come together in the sun- 
beam, and so does law with virtue of desire 
and deed. In becoming religious one loses 
nothing but often gains when least it is expect- 
ed. No one can perceive its beauties unless his 
heart is morally good. " To know nature then, 
one must be true to nature. To be true to na- 
ture then, one must live looking forever to the 
mighty spirit who presides. Nature has been 
said to have an exhaustless meaning, but it is a 
meaning to be rightly seen and heard only by 
him who strives ceaselessly and prayerfully to 
become all that the divine image and likeness 
is capable of becoming, which is in fact to be- 
come humane and religious, and as we become 
more humane the world becomes to us more di- 
vine and man a better Christian." 

Religion may be divided into two parts; that 
which relates to its historical forms is called 
comparative theology; the other is that which 
explains the conditions under which, in the 
highest or lowest form it is possible, is called 
theoretic theology. 

Comparative theology is like that of compar- 
ative philology and can be traced back to the 
early races of mankind in Asia. It shows that 
it has taken many forms and has much to do in 
shaping the public mind, laws and institutions 



of every country, and all religions may be said 
to be the groundwork of every government ex- 
cept that of the United States, in which a new 
departure was taken and God and religion were 
for the first time left out. 

There are two modes by which man gets his 
religious knowledge: natural and revealed. 
The natural is the knowledge man gets by the 
light of nature and reason; the revealed religion 
is that which comes by revelations from God, 
angels and spirits, and the inspiration of pro- 
phets, seers and mediums. It manifested itself 
to Mose^: in the burning bush, and he heard it 
on Mount Sinai. Therefore all religious knowl- 
edge we have on this subject is through revela- 
tion, and this revelation has been made to man 
through the mediumship of some person who 
has been inspired or who has held converse 
with angels or spirits. The record of these 
facts are called a Bible in the Christian reli- 
gion; with the Hindoos it is called the Vedas; 
with the sun-worshippers the Zend-Avesta; with 
the Mohammedans the Koran. 

" True religion is that which embraces the 
universe, reveals perfect justice to all, breathes 
boundless goodness, fills the reason with lights 
the affection with love, the sorrowing with con- 
solation^ the down-trodden with courage^ and 
the despairing with the golden beams of eternal 
hope and happiness. It is responsive to every 
real human need, the infinite sources of love 
and wisdom perpetually flow into and flood the 
individual receptive spirit; and the innumera- 
ble host of the heavenly spheres freely shower 
their fondest affections and their most resplend- 
ent thoughts into the common life of the terres- 
trial millions o' '>uman beings. There is no 
one utterly forsaken, li' are a part of the whole 
in the great plan of creation; no bleeding heart 
that either lives or dies wholly alone and un- 
known; there are ministering spirits and guar- 
dian angels watching over every human being; 
no unrequited life in this universe of love; no 
possible estrangement from the redemptive 
power of the universal presence." 

All humanity moves within the orbit of the 
spiritual Sun according to certain and fixed 
laws of the spirit world. There is no gravita- 
tion equal or superior to the attraction of heav- 
en, while our feet and our animal nature cling 
to the earth, yet our heads point towards the 



65 



heavens. That our bodies will return to the 
earth from whence they came and the self, the 
ego, the soul, will ascend to the mansion in the 
skies, where it will follow the laws of progress 
and grow wiser, purer and better until it reaches 
the divine sensorium whence it came. 

The supreme Power whom we reverence is 
the boundless and endless one — the grand 
''Central Spiritual Sun' — by whose attributes 
and the visible effects of whose inaudible will 
we are surrounded — the God of the ancients 
and the God of modern seers. His nature can 
be studied only in the worlds called forth by 
his mighty yf<7/. His revelation is traced with 
His own finger in the rocks, in imperishable fig- 
ures upon the face of the cosmos, and the same 
forces are at work and the same laws that gov- 
ern matter are now in operation as were in the 
days of Moses, David and Jesus Christ and 
the apostles. It is the only infallible gospel 
we can recognize. The earth is God's Bible, 
for it His is work, and He has written on the 
rocks characters that the geologist can read. 
"Therefore," says Agassiz, *'to understand 
God we must study His works in nature, and 
the more we learn of it the more we will know 
of Him." 

The materialist says there is no God except 
the gray matter in our brain, yet there is an 
inward whispering that says "No." The ego, 
which lives and thinks and feels independently 
of us in our mortal casket, does more than be- 
lieve; it knows that there exists a God in nature, 
for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives 
in us, as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith 
or exact science is able to uproot that intui- 
tional feeling inherent in man, when he has 
once fully realized it in himself. Human na-, 
ture is like universal nature in its abhorrence of 
a vacuum. It feels an immortal yearning for a 
supreme power; without a God the cosmos 
would seem like a soulless corpse. Being for- 
bidden to search for Him where alone His 
traces would be found, man has filled the ach- 
ing void with a personal God, whom his spirit- 
ual teachers have created for him to worship 
out of the heathen myths. 

Religion places the human soul in the pres- 
ence of its highest ideal; it lilts it above the 
level of ordinary goodness and produces, at 



least, a yearning after a higher and better life — 
a life in the light of God. 

Religion is that which distinguishes man 
from the animals. We do not mean the Chris- 
tian or Jewish religions only, but all religions — 
a faculty which, in spite of sense or reason, en- 
ables man to apprehend the Infinite, under any 
varying disguises. For all religions have in 
them a spark of good. Without this faculty, 
there could be no controlling or governing 
man; for all religions are nothing but the groan- 
ing of the spirit, struggling and longing after the 
Infinite. 

This yearning after immortality has, in all 
ages of the world, made him a slave to priests 
and fanatics, to be humbugged and imposed 
upon, instead of being his own priest and con- 
sulting the inner prompting of his better nature. 
He has suffered others to think for him and 
intercede in his behalf. 

All men are mediumistic, if they would only 
consult and listen to their better promptings, 
which are ever whispering in their ears what is 
right and what is wrong. But, blinded by prej- 
udice and superstition, they shut their ears to 
those inward whisperings, and follows the 
teachings of some selfish, scheming man, who, 
to furthei his ends and ambition, has, in all 
ages of the world, seized upon this religious 
sentiment in man to rule, control and govern 
him. 

"The king is at the head of state and 
church. The king never dies and the church 
never does wrong." This idea has kept the 
masses in slavery and ignorance. They have 
been taught to obey and pay the priest to pray 
for them. The king and the priest have preyed 
upon their earnings, and it was to their interest 
to keep them in ignorance, so they could con- 
tinue to prey upon them. "This unnatural 
and unjust religion," says Draper, " has retard- 
ed civilization a thousand years." They have 
used it to control man and govern him to suit 
their interest and not his. The moment a man 
begins to investigate he becomes skeptical, and 
then he is in a tair way to learn the truth and 
think for himself, and worship God in accord- 
ance to the dictates of his conscience. 

Religion has led to endless wars that have 
devastated whole countries, and reduced the 
inhabitants to the condition of slaves, and 



(jS 



forced them to accept the religion of some am- 
bitious general, or fanatical priest, who had no 
other idea of God than that which his narrow, 
bigoted brain would allow him to create. So 
they have made gods and religions to suit their 
fancy, and not in accordance with the grand 
idea and plan of nature and creation. Said a 
native to a missionary: 

'* Your soldiers seduce our women. * * * 
You come to rob us of our land, pillage the 
country and make war upon us, and you wish 
to force your God upon us, saying that He for- 
bids robbery, pillage and war. You are white 
on one side, and black on the other, and if we 
were to cross the river, it would not be us that 
the devil would take." 

Among Christians there is nothing but dis- 
sensions — a contest about creeds and ceremo- 
nies; they are intolerant and tyrannical if left 
to them to govern man and control his con- 
science. Each claims to be right and all oth- 
ers wrong. Its dogmas are orthodox, but all 
other churches are heterodox, and are ready to 
go to war and cut each other's throats about 
something in which all may be wrong or know 
nothing about. 

There is nothing more incomprehensible to 
the heathen than the trinity — Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost, and these three in one; all equal in 
the God-head — and the divinity of Christ; that 
he was born of a woman and still he was God. 
There is but one God and yet there are three; 
how can this be ? Some worship the Father, 
some the Son, and others the virgin Mary, who 
was the mother. 

The abstract fictions of antiquity, which for 
ages had filled the popular fancy with but flick- 
ering shadows and uncertain images, have in 
Christianity assumed the shapes of real person- 
ages and become accomplished facts. Alle- 
gory, metamorphosed, becomes sacred history, 
and pagan myth is taught to the people as a 
revealed narrative of God's intercourse with his 
chosen people, while thousands of books, con- 
taining as much sacred history and as strong 
evidence that they were written by divine hands, 
have been committed to the flames and their 
believers have been put to the torture. 

The theology of Christendom has been 
rubbed threadbare by the investigations of 
science and the research of the philologist and 



the archaeologist. It is found to be, on the 
whole, subversive, rather than progressive, of 
spirituality and good morals. Instead of ex- 
panding the rule of divine law and justice, it 
leaves us in doubt and dread of damnation. It 
fills the mind with doubt as to what course to 
pursue. It makes cowards of all; every one 
dreads death, instead of looking on it as a 
transition into a higher sphere and a better ex- 
i'^tence. 

The Jewish religion teaches us of an an- 
gry and revengeful God (which is an absurdity), 
who will condemn the spirits of the wicked to 
hell-fire and the devil, there to be roasted for- 
ever. That part of the Lord's Prayer, that 
says, " Lead us not into temptation," is an in- 
sult to God and common sense. The absurd- 
ity of the thought that God, the embodiment of 
goodness and purity, would or could, for a mo- 
ment, entertain the idea of leading any mortal 
into temptation of any kind ! No, this part of 
the Lord's Prayer is directed to Satan, the tute- 
lar genius who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, 
put an evil spirit in Saul, sent lying messengers 
to the prophets and tempted David to sin; such 
is the God of Israel, as described in the Bible. 

The various religions are like the pure white 
ray, broken up and scattered by the prism. 
Red, which represents blood, is the stronger; 
it has been the most prominent in all the West- 
ern religions; it has caused more wars and 
bloodshed than any other, while that taught by 
the Brahmins and the Buddhist has been like 
that of the blue rays; it is the slowest and it 
lingers longest in the atmosphere, which gives 
it the cerulean hue. So each ray of the spec- 
trum, by imperceptible shadings, merges into 
each other, and so all the great theologies that 
have appeared at different times, have diverged 
from each other until they form thousands of 
religious creeds and sects, when all combined 
represent only one Eternal Truth. 

*' Truly," says Bishop Kidder, " were a wise 
man to choose his religion from those who pro- 
fess it, perhaps Christianity would be the last 
religion he would choose, for they preach one 
thing and practice another." Their ministers 
claim to be followers of the disciples, but in no 
instance do they do as the disciples did, '* Care 
not for food or raiment or gold or wealth; heal 
the sick or console the distressed;" but always 



67 



keep an eye to. the good things of this earth 
and a fat parsonage. They tell the people the 
days of miracles are closed, and that the door 
to heaven is shut, to be entered only through 
and by the church; that man must look to Jesus 
and the cross and the virgin Mary, and not to 
God himself. It is evident that they have be- 
come degenerate and do not understand the 
true workings of the spirit through the occult 
powers that are ever ready to be invoked to 
assist and instruct man how to become wiser 
and better. In their ignorance they have dei- 
fied a great medium, who understood these 
forces and used them to reform man and purify 
the church. But instead of following out his 
directions they have used his name to mislead 
mankind, and they have so clouded man's in- 
tellect with dogmas that it has caused him to 
lose sight of his individual relation and account- 
ability to God. 

The Christian religion is repulsive to the 
Chinese, because Jesus had so little respect for 
his father and mother, and his disrespect for 
the dead, when he said to the young man, "Let 
the dead bury the dead." 

As a Khan said to Marco Polo : * ' You see 
the Christians are ignorant. They can't get 
their gods to do anything; while these idolaters 
can get their gods to do anything that is wanted 
of them, insomuch, that when I sit at table the 
cups from the middle of the hall come to me 
filled with wine or other liquor, without being 
touched by anybody, and I drink from them. 
They control storms, causing them to pass in 
whatever direction is indicated they should 
take, and do many other marvels; while, as 
you know, their idols speak, and give them 
predictions on whatever subjects are chosen, 
which you Christians cannot do. Why should 
we change our religion for one that is infe- 
rior ? " 

Why should the Christian sneer at the mirac- 
ulous power of fakir adepts and mediums, 
when they only do what prophets and Christ 
and his apostles did — unbolt prison doors, and 
strike sinners blind ? Why should the devout 
Catholic turn from the performances of medi- 
ums and adepts, when their priest claims to do 
the same thing, by making the coagulated blood 
of a martyred saint boil and fume in a crystal 
bottle. A Hindoo priest can plunge an arm 



into the heart of his idol and out gushes a stream 
of blood, and he can change water into blood. 
Indeed, there is no difference. Both have the 
same power; both do or practice deception on 
the people; one is no better than the other; 
both are idol-worshipers, and of those mystic 
systems which precede by far the Brahmanism 
and even the primitive monotheism of ancient 
Chaldea. 

The difference between ancient and modern 
religion is only the difference in their civiliza- 
tion. The Christian religion is but a similar 
force like all others, and equal in its line of 
development. Civilization is not dependent on 
any form of religion, but is traceable to a great 
variety of influences; among which that of the 
mingling of races is most prominent, which 
infuses more energy and expands the races, 
while freedom and science are the motive pow- 
ers which the church has often crushed or re- 
tarded. The leaf needs no miracle to produce 
a flower, nor does the child become a man 
through the agency of any miraculous power; 
it is but the result of natural growth and devel- 
opment. 

Meanwhile, we must remember the direct ef- 
fects of the revealed mystery. The only way 
the priest of old could impress the masses with 
the belief in the divine power was by the per- 
forming of "miracles," by the animation of 
matter, by their will-power, which convinced 
the skeptical mind that there was an invisible 
power that was capable of moving matter. 
And to teach them that there was an omnipo- 
tent and omnipresent power, a great first cause 
that governed all things for a fixed purpose, 
with which they had an influence. 

The world needs no sectarian church, whether 
of Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Swedenborg, Cal- 
vin or any other. There being but one truthy 
man requires but one church — knowledge — the 
temple of God within, walled in by matter, but 
penetrable by any who wish to find the way. 
" The pure in heart see God." Nature is God's 
tempUy and aspii'ation is his worship; and to 
understand these laws, is to make gods of our- 
selves, for each and every man has, within him, 
a spark, which, if cultivated by living a pure, 
good life, will always keep him in the right 
path, and, finally, make him a demi-god, for all 
angels and arch-angels have followed the law of 



68 



evolution and progress, and once were dwell- 
ers in the flesh. 

Man needs no savior or priest to direct him 
to heaven, if he will follow the inner prompt- 
ings of his better nature. He will find his way, 
for death is as much a fixed law as that of 
birth, and is in harmony with the laws of na- 
ture; and the same intelligence and force that 
brought him into existence, will carry him 
through the ordeal of death, and if he has lived 
n harmony with these laws, he has nothing to 
fear, whether he be pagan or Christian. 

All progress is natural, and is divine. It 
proceeds by laws inherent and immanent in 
humanity. Laws whose absoluteness affirm 
infinite mind, as implicated in this finite ad- 
vance up to mind. The laws that govern this 
onward movement are inspiratiofi — drawn 
from the infinite mind, whether it be pagan or 
Christian, whether it believes in Christ or 
Buddha. 

The religion of the savage is not the religion 
of the civilized man. One is that of fear, super- 
stition and ignorance, a fetishism; while 
the other should be that of science, of truth 
and knowledge, of reason and love. For the 
growing belief that the stability of law is the 
guarantee of universal good; or, to translate it 
into the language of the spirit, that law means 
love, is the sign of love in its practical and 
universal sense, is itself becoming the all-ab- 



sorbing calculus, and all-analyzing prism of our 
spiritual astronomy — the preserver, the divine 
interpreter of law. The stoic, Aurelius, said: 
" Whatever happens to us is from nature, 
because that only can happen by nature which 
is suitable, and it is enough to remember that 
law rules all." 

The world of religion is broader than Chris- 
tendom has apprehended, and it is destined to 
widen in the sight of man as he progresses in 
knowledge. The opening of China to the 
Western nations, and their immigration and 
labor, are events as momentous to the religious 
as to the commercial and political world. India 
and China are full of "lights," of which the 
Christian has never dreamed, that have been 
kept in the dark and denounced as the work of 
sorcery and jugglery. 

Let us rest assured that liberty, democracy, 
labor, reform, popular progress, are not empty 
words; they will reach beyond the assertion of 
exclusive rights or selfish claims into full recog- 
nition of universal duties : that liberty is not to 
stop in license, nor democracy in greed 
and aggression, nor progress to be earned 
through bloody retribution alone; civilization 
will not be retarded in its onward march by the 
exposure of the falsehood of any creed or 
church, for there is nothing can stay the hand 
of the Infinite. 




CHAPTER VII. 



ANCESTRAL WORSHIP OF THE ANCIENT ARYANS. 



The science of religion is to sift and classify 
it, and thus try to discover the necessary ante- 
cedents of all faith and the laws which govern 
the growth and decay of human religion, and 
the goal to which all religion tends. Whether 
there ever can be one perfect universal religion 
is a question as difficult to answer as whether 
there ever can be one perfect universal lan- 
guage. 

A perfect religion, like a perfect language, is 
something beyond all conception. All reli- 
gions, like languages, must have passed through 
many changes. Religion is a thing of growth 
and development; it has its roots deep down 
in our spiritual nature, which are ever urging us 
on to a higher state, to reach out and grasp the 
infinite and to comprehend our creator. 

The time for a belief in the supernatural in 
religion is past; that faith is a hallucination 
or an infantile disease; that all the stories told 
about the gods and saviors have at last been 
found out and exploded; that there is no possi- 
ble know^ledge except that which comes to us 
through our senses; that we must be satisfied 
with facts and finite things that are made mani- 
fest to us. 

It is our ignorance of these laws that makes 
us superstitious and creates a belief in the su- 
pernatural. As we advance in the light of 
knowledge the mysterious recedes in the dark- 
ness of ignorance. 

The Archaic man supposed that every force 
to which his attention was directed was similar 
to that which he recognized in himself, and 
either was, or implied, a like being. He was 
conscious, or thought he was conscious, that he 
(himself) consisted of a soul and a body — of 
something substantial and of something insub- 



stantial. And he concluded that, in like man- 
ner, there were souls in all things. He saw 
that there were forces in nature more powerful 
than he and which he could not control, and 
were capable of doing him good or evil; there- 
fore they appeared to him fit objects of suppli- 
cation — beings whose favor he might procure 
or whose wrath he might avert by offerings, 
prayer and supplication. Hence arose the 
whole system of manes-worship, and all the 
myths of the sun and of the moon; of the 
dawn, the twilight and the night; of the wind 
and the storm; of the earth and sea and sky. 

" The uncultivated man, indeed, worshiped 
every force" (see "Village Communities") 
"that assists or obstructs him in his daily work. 
That worship is his recognition of the existence 
of such a force and of its connection, or, at 
least, its possible connection, with his own wel- 
fare. It was by this method he accounts for 
all phenomena which have attracted his atten- 
tion, which his unlettered brain could not ex- 
plain. In other words, mythology was the 
natural philosophy of the early world, and out 
of which has evolved the multiplicity of heathen 
gods and goddesses, who were special divini- 
ties to assist and direct nature, which presided 
over birth, life, death, dreams, trances and 
visions." 

From these facts it was almost inevitable 
that the untrained intellect should come to the 
conclusion that the disembodied spirits bore an 
important part in the economy of nature. The 
forces that assisted him were good, those that 
obstructed him were bad. He was forced to 
acknowledge the presence of these forces, and 
they produced all the changes and phenomena 
that came under his observation, and the only 

69 



70 



way he could explain them was to ascribe them 
to some supernatural power. 

Manes-worship, therefore, stands at the base 
of mythology. Man sought to conciliate the 
spirits of their distinguished heroes and slates- 
men. Thus the Thebans and Athenians dis- 
puted over the body of (Edipus, and the Ar- 
gives and Trojans fought for the bones of Ores- 
tes. The Acanthians offered sacrifice to the 
gigantic Persian engineer who died in their 
midst, and the people of Amphipolis to the 
gallant Brasidas. The Hindoo of the present 
day adores the manes of the prominent English 
officials who happen to be buried in their vil- 
lages. 

So the Archaic mind was governed by a vast 
variety of gods, acting each on his own princi- 
ples, and each seeking the exclusive interest of 
his worshipers. Every assembly of men had 
their own god and regarded that god as their 
exclusive property. Each nation had its pe- 
culiar tutelar deity and pantheon of gods. 

When primitive man had arrived at a stage of 
intellectual development so that he had a con- 
ception of a divine being — one greater and 
higher than himself — he had accomblished 
much. How he arrived at that conclusion the 
most learned differ. 

One of the first impulses to religion proceed- 
ed from an incipient perception of the infinite 
pressing upon man through the great phenom- 
ena of nature, and not from sentiments of sur- 
prise or fear, called forth by such finite things 
as shells, stones, bones, trees or animals; that 
is to say, by fetishes. 

Though the prehistoric and cjiiaternary man 
may and did use such things, they were but- 
rude emblems and symbols to give an expres- 
sion to the belief that therewas an invisible 
power which controlled and could render them 
assistance if it saw proper to so act; while 
others claim that it came from ancestral wor- 
ship of the images of the departed dead that 
they saw in their dreams, whom they worked 
up into ghosts and spirits, who still lived in the 
air and could render them assistance, and that 
it was the natural affection of the parent that 
drew him near to his children, and who was 
ever ready to assist them in their troubles. So 
the son looked upon his dead father as a kind 
of god to whom he owed his existence. In 



childhood he looked up to him for protection 
and support, and when he had grown into man- 
hood these ideas still lingered in his memory, 
and the love and affection he had for him while 
living ripened at his death into a feeling of 
reverence that is closely allied to that of ven- 
eration, so to propitiate his spirit he is led to 
do homage to his grave and confer on him 
divine rights; indeed, the ancient Aryan be- 
lieved that it was necessary to make sacrifices 
on his father's tomb, and the Chinese still fol- 
low this kind of worship. 

Periodically they have a feast of the dead. 
While the odor rises to satisfy the hunger of the 
departed spirits of the dead, they are practical 
enough to think that it does not injure the ma- 
terial carcass of the hog to take it home in the 
evening and make a feast for the mortal man. 
While the more cultivated Aryan does not offer 
the viands to his dead, there still lingers the 
idea of strewing flowers over the graves of their 
departed loved ones. 

The Chinese bride at the present day wor- 
ships in company with her husband his an- 
cestors; so the Aryan bride thousands of years 
ago did homage to the gods of the house to 
which she was introduced, and entered into 
formal communion with them. She was pre- 
sented upon her entrance into the house with 
the holy fire and lustral water, and partook 
along with her husband in the presence of the 
lares of the symbolic meal. She was robed in 
white, the emblem of purity and the robe of a 
priestess. She ceased to be a member of her 
father's house and to worship her father's gods, 
but became the priestess to her adopted house 
spirit. Hence comes the modern custom of 
robing the bride in white, and the eating of the 
wedding cake and the drinking of the wine, 
that the ancient Aryan and his bride of- 
fered up to the house spirit of his departed 
ancestors. 

The ancient Aryans worshiped dead ances- 
tors long before they emigrated from the plains 
of Bokhara, in Central Asia, into Europe, be- 
fore they had a Zeus, Jupiter or Indra. The 
common progenitors of our race did homage to 
the dwellers in the spirit world, and above all, 
offered their daily orisons to their own fathers 
upon the holy hearth and at the commence- 
ment of every meal, which was, in effect, a 



71 



sacrifice. Libations and offerings were made 
as tokens and pledges of honor and affection to 
their departed ancestors, which custom still 
lingers in the form of saying grace before the 
commencement of the evening meal, while 
some families still set the empty chair of the 
deceased up to the table. The spirits were not 
supposed to come unbidden, the offering must 
be made to them, their presence invited, and 
their share set apart. The common meal was 
closely connected with their family worship. 
Meals are an essential part of all religious wor- 
ship. "The earliest religious acts seem to 
have been the eating of a meal prepared on an 
altar." (See M. De Coulange's " Ancient 
Cities," page 182.) 

They thought every object consisted of two 
parts: of a substance and of a shadow; of a 
soul and of a body: of something immaterial 
as well as of something material; that articles 
of food and of drink possessed this nature. It 
was upon the immaterial part of the offerings 
that the spirits fed, while the earthly parts were 
left for man. That which supported and 
strengthened after its kind the human body 
supported and strengthened by its spiritual 
force the spirit to whom it was presented; nor 
did the worshipers doubt that at every such 
meal their divine head sat present, though un- 
seen, among them. 

All religious festivals with the native of Aus- 
tralia, Africa, America, Europe and Asia, 
whether he be Pagan, Mohammedan, Bud- 
dhist, Brahmin, Jew or Christian, are of a 
spiritual nature and owe their origin to a belief 
of a future existence after death. The Irish 
wake is only the lingering custom of the an- 
cient Celt feast to the dead. 

Early philosophy, then, and religion were at 
first one, and such a union in later times tended 
to produce, in the words of Lord Bacon, "a 
heretical religion and a fantastic philosophy." 
But in an early stage of mental development, 
the combination is one which we might expect. 
In their philosophical aspect these forms repre- 
sented two theories: the one the natural phi- 
losophy, the other the biology of our fore- 
fathers. In their religious aspect the one was 
the mythical, or heroic, or Olympian religion; 
the other was the domestic religion, the reli- 
gion of the hearth, the worship of deceased 



ancestors. ' ' The worship of the house-spirits," 
says Hearn in his work on "Aryan House- 
holds," "was a reverential religion, * * * 
and every meal was in effect a sacrifice, and 
the Aryan housefather, when he reverentially 
asked a blessing upon his humble abode, felt 
that he was not only seeking a continuance of 
the diviue protection, but that he was securing 
the happiness of the spirits of his fathers and 
his gods." 

Each household had a house-spirit which 
was the spirit of the deceased ancestor that 
still dwelt at and protected the holy hearth on 
which the ever-burning fire was the emblem of 
the comfortable element, and the origin of 
communication between the spirit of the de- 
parted and those living in the flesh; and it was 
in the olden days of our Aryan ancestors their 
mode of worship. The husband and wife 
made their own offerings; he was the priest and 
she was the priestess, and it was the center of 
the spiritual life. 

The Aryan language contains an abundance 
of terms expressive of a religious sentiment of 
adoration, of piety, of faith, of prayer, and of 
sacrifice; but there is not any word suggestive 
of public worship — priests, idols or of temples 
or of altars, or that they had any middle-men 
who could act as go-between from God to man 
to forgive his sins and give him a free pass to 
heaven. 

The house-spirits were directly charged with 
the preservation of the property of the house- 
hold, as Horace tells us, "The guardians 
against thieves." "They, repelled the thief," 
Ovid assures us in "Fasti," v. 141. 

He is known to the Greeks by the name of 
the " Hero of the House," " Man of the 
Household;' by the Romans, "The Husting 
of the Teutons;" and " The Damovoy, or 
Angel in the House," of the Russian peasant 
of the present day. The hearth was the altar; 
there the holy fire ever burned, and there the 
gross corporeal substance of the food was 
purged away and its spiritual essence rendered 
fit for the acceptance of the spirit. On this 
hearth where in his lifetime he had so often 
sacrificed, the departed house-father received 
at the hands of his successor his share of every 
meal and heard from his lips in his own honor 
those words of prayer and praise. 



72 



The first step in the formation of a house- 
hold was marriage. Then he was a finished 
man, according to the Greeks, and what we 
call a family man. "Then only," says Menu, 
*' is a man perfect when he consists of three 
persons, united: his wife, himself and his son." 
Our remote ancestors sought marriage for the 
purpose of raising a son, for it was to the son 
that the father could look to perpetuate the 
household. It was by the son, according to 
the teachings of Menu, that the father dis- 
charges his duty to his progenitors and by 
whom he attains immortality. It is the son 
who, in the words of ^4^]schylus, is the savior of 
the hearth of his fathers. The son must be 
born in lawful wedlock; an illegitimate son was 
not only not acknowledged, but was excluded 
from the household. 

It was of little importance what befel a man 
after he had raised a son. The ancient Hin- 
doo father, after he had raised his family, left 
home and lived in the iorest, where he might 
be free from care and to study and philoso- 
phize. Solon prohibited celibacy; criminal 
proceedings might be taken at Athens and 
Sparta against one who did not marry at all. 
Cicero says it is a part of the duty of the cen- 
sors to impose a tax upon unmarried men. It 
was considered a crime not to get married and 
have no son to offer sacrifice upon his father's 
grave, and to inherit and keep up the house- 
hold, which could not be mortgaged and sold — 
the land was not regarded as an asset in the 
way of payment of debts. The son, therefore, 
was the person who continued upon earth his 
father's existence after that father had joined 
the house-spirits, so when a father had begotten 
a son he had discharged his duty to his progen- 
itors. 

** Those animals," says Menu, " begotten by 
adulterers destroy, both in this w^orld and the 
next, the food presented to them by such as 
make oblations to the gods and to the manes." 
The rule of the Attic law was that a bastard 
had no place in the worship, nor in the house- 
hold, nor in the property of the parent, and it 
was the same in Roman, German and Norse 
law. A man married for duty and not for 
pleasure. " Mistresses," says Demosthenes, 
"we keep for pleasure; concubines for daily 
attendance upon our persons; wives to bear us 



legitimate children and to be faithful house- 
keepers." Isais said, " No man who knows he 
must die can have so little regard for himself 
as to leave his family without descendants, for 
then there would be no one to render him the 
worship due to the dead." When Leonidas 
selected the three hundred braves to defend 
Thermopylae, he took only fathers that had 
sons living at home. 

Cato the elder tells us that it was the first 
duty of the house-father on his return home, 
to pay devotions at the altar of the lares. See 
Mommsen's History of Rome, volume I, page 

173- 

Plato, speaking of the worship of the gods, 
who were only the spirits of good and great 
men who had progressed high in the spirit 
world, says, "Alter these gods a prudent per- 
son will celebrate the holy rites of daemons — 
spirits — and after them of heroes, and after 
them follow the statues of the household gods, 
held holy according to law, and after them are 
the honors paid to living parents; since it is 
just for a person to pay to living parents; since 
it is just for a person who owes the first and 
the greatest of debts to pay those that are of 
the longest standing, and to think that all the 
things he has acquired and holds he owes to 
those who begot him and brought him up, for 
supplying what is required for their service to 
the utmost of his power, bringing from his sub- 
stance first, and in the second place from his 
body, and third from his soul, by paying ofif the 
debts for their care of him, and in the favor of 
those who gave the pangs of labor as a loan to 
the young, and by returning what has been due 
a long time to those who in old age are greatly 
in want. It is requisite, likewise, to hold pre- 
eminently a kind language towards his parents, 
because there is for light and wicked words of 
punishment most heavy, for Nemesis, the mes- 
senger 6f justice, has been appointed an in- 
spector over all persons in matters of this 
kind." 

" For as something is always flowing away 
from us, it is necessary for something, on the 
contrary, to be flowing to us. Now recollec- 
tion is the influx of thoughts which had left us. 
* * * Each person while his daemon (spirit) 
is standing steadily, going on successfully or 
unsuccessfully to places as high and steep. 



while daemons (spirits) are opposing with cer- 
tain disturbances; and that it is meet ever to 
hope that the deity will, when troubled, fall 
upon the good state which he has given, makes 
them less instead of greater and causes a change 
from the present state to a better one with 
respect to the good things, the contraries of 
these, that they will always be present to them 
with good fortune." Plato, volume V, page 
i6i. 

The respect for another's property was due 
to the respect or fear for the spirits that guarded 
that property. It is still a custom among the 
nomads of Central Asia if a horse is stolen for 
the owner to go to the grave of the father of 
the suspected horse thief and stick a spear into 
the grave. This proceeding is understood by 
the thief to be a complaint made to his de- 
ceased house-father's spirit, and if the suspi- 
cion be well founded the horse is found the 
next morning tied to the spear. 

Word, in his book, " Journey to the Source 
of Oxus," gives an instance where the grain 
was piled up around a graveyard. He inquired 
of a chief, Agha Maheide, the cause. "The 
old man put the forefinger of his right hand to 
his lips and looking at me said, ' God forbid; 
bad as men are they will not pilfer in the pres- 
ence of the dead.' " The natives prefer to 
trust their valuables to the sacred guardianship 
of such a place rather than to a weak and fail- 
ing brother. 

There are many people who will not dese- 
crate a graveyard, and who believe that the 
spirit will avenge the wrongs done to it when in 
the flesh. Mr. Taylor, in his book, " Primi- 
tive Culture," gives an instance of where a 
Brahmin cut off the head of his mother, with 
her consent and request, so that her spirit 
might punish a neighbor who had repudiated 
some small debt which he owed to the house- 
hold. The remarkable custom of setting 
dharna, which once existed in Ireland, and of 
late years has been prohibited by the penal 
code in India, traces of which, perhaps, may 
be found in the Twelve Tables. The religious 
sentiment of the Archaic society of the Aryan 
race was a force which recognized property m 
the household which was guarded by the house 
spirits. 

The Chinese still carry the bones of the dead 



back to China to be interred. Such worship 
was natural, according to the Archaic ideas; 
but far more natural, by the same standard, 
was the belief that the spirits of those whom 
men loved and honored in their life, continued 
after death their vigilance and their aid. The 
interests of men in the flesh were also their 
interests in the spirit, and the lives and the 
hates of this world followed the deceased to 
that world which lay beyond the grave. 
Manes-worship, therefore, stands on the same 
base as the more picturesque worship of Olym- 
pus. Thus primitive worship and that great 
train of consequences that has been transmitted 
to us, depends, like primitive mythology, upon 
the state of our intelligence. It is, after all, 
the intellect that ultimately directs and deter- 
mines the main current of the varying and tor- 
tuous stream of the world's history. 

'^' The Locan gods," says Mr. Taylor in his 
"Primitive Culture," volume II, page no, 
"the patron gods of particular ranks and crafts, 
the gods from whom men sought special help 
in special needs, were too near and dear to the 
inmost heart of pre-Christian Europe to be 
done away without substitutes, so they substi- 
tuted saints who could answer their prayers. 
Some have St. Cecilia, the patroness of music; 
St. Luke, patron of painters; St. Peter, of fish- 
mongers; St. Valentine, of lovers; St. Sebas- 
tian, of archers; St. Crispin, of cobblers; St. 
Hubert, who cures the bite of mad dogs; St. 
Vitus, of vitus dance; and St. Fiacre, of the 
hackney coaches. 

As a rule every trade, every profession, every 
guild, every tribe, every clan is also a caste, 
and the members of a caste not only have their 
own special objects of worship, but the princi- 
pal deities likewise. So in the nineteenth cen- 
tury we still have St. Valentine's day on the 
fourteenth day of February for making merry. 
On this day it was supposed by the ancients the 
birds of the air made choice of their mates, 
and that it was a favorite day with this merry 
goddess to be around and aid the boys and girls 
in their courtships. 

There is no evidence that the Aryans were a 
polytheistic people. Pictet is of the opinion 
that their original belief was one true God, 
while Hearn in his work, "Aryan Households," 
'hinks that the polytheistic pantheon was not 



74 



of a religious origin, but only scientific, and 
was designed merely to explain in the rude 
fashion of an early time the ordinary phenom- 
ena of nature. They had a word which cor- 
responded with that of Vesta, which goes to 
prove that the Aryans recognized the hearth. 
It does not indicate how far in their eyes the 
hearth was holy. 

The Hindoo, Greek and Roman pantheons 
had their origin not so much as distinctive reli- 
gions, as they were a professional class or a lit- 
erary clan. 

The magi of the ancient Persians, the Brah- 
mins, the Hierophants of ancient Egypt, and 
the Levites of the Jews, were all a privileged 
caste, and used their knowledge to control their 
ignorant masses through their religious feelings 
and dread of a future punishment or in hope of 
a reward for doing good. So they manufact- 
ured gods to suit their wants, and these gods 
made such revelations as suited the interest and 
wishes of this favored class. 

Gladstone said, *' that the pagan deities 
represented deified men. Honest gods were 
heroes deified a little above mortal man, in- 
vested with passions of love and hate, courage 
and cowardice, united with noble sentiments, 
base and vulgar thoughts, with lofty and sub- 
lime ideas, all wrought up by fancy so as to 
work upon the minds of the people." 

It is the opinion of Herbert Spencer that 
**the rudimentary form of all religion is the 
propitiation of dead ancestors, who are sup- 
posed to be still existing and to be capable of 
working good or evil to their descendants." 
In order to better propitiate the favor of his 
dead ancestor he sometimes carves his image in 
wood or stone, which sentiment in time lapses 
into idolatry. Every object which strikes the 
rude fancy as analagous to the character of an 
individual may become an object of worship. 
The savage molds his deity according to the 
caliber of his mind, out of mud or carved from 
wood or stone. 

Deep down in the human breast is implanted 
a religious belief that behind all visible appear- 
ances is an invisible power; underlying all con- 
eeption is an instinct or intuition from which 
there is no escape; that beyond material actual- 
ities potential agencies are at work, and through 
all belief, from the stupid fetishism to the most 



exalted monotheism as a part of these instinct- 
ive convictions, it is held that there is a being 
(or beings) who rules man's destiny, and that it 
may be propitiated, to which all turn their eyes 
and lift up their prayers when in distress and 
danger, that cannot be averted by the power of 
man. 

The word mythology is derived from myt/ios, 
fable, and logos, speech. It relates to the 
genesis of gods and their nature. It is a mass 
of fragmentary truth mixed up with fiction, 
built up of dead facts cemented with wild fan- 
cies. It is the effort of the untutored man to 
explain the origin of things. In the black 
clouds he sees evil, in the flowing brook, in the 
rustling branches he feels the breathing of gods, 
goblins dance in the twilight and demons howl 
in the darkness of night. When evil comes 
God is angry, when fortune smiles God is 
pleased . 

*' Myths," says Bancroft in his "Native 
Races," volume III, page i6, "were the ora- 
cles of our savage ancestors; their creeds, the 
rule of their life, prized by them as men now 
prize their faith; and by whatever savage phi- 
losophy these strange conceits were eliminated, 
their effect upon the popular mind was vital. 
Anaxagoras, Socrates, Protagoras and Epicurus 
well, knew and boldly proclaimed that the gods 
of Grecians were disreputable characters, not 
the kind of deities to make and govern 
worlds." 

" Everywhere," says Herbert Spencer, "we 
find expressed or implied the belief that each 
person is double; that when he dies his other 
self, whether remaining near at hand or gone 
far away, may return and continue capable of 
injuring his enemies and aiding his friends." 
This idea of duality, he is of the opinion, 
had its origin with the savage, whose image is 
reflected in the brook, or his shadow which fol- 
lows him everywhere, moving as he moves. In 
the dream the images are as perfect as in life, 
and this has led man to believe in the existence 
of a spiritual body. 

All religion believes in prayers and sacrifices, 
and there has never been found a race of 
human beings but they had some kind of reli- 
gion. Says Max Muller, in his lectures on 
" The Growth of Religion," "it is an inherent 
characteristic of man." The Fiji believes the 



75 



shooting stars are gods and the small ones the 
departing souls of men. The Benin negroes 
regard shadows as their souls. The Maori 
word mota^ a soul, meant a shadow, while the 
idea of God being everywhere sprang from a 
spirit, and the idea of a spirit from that of a 
shadow. 

Tacitus informs us that the ancient Germans 
count those only as gods whom they can per- 
ceive, and by whose gifts they are clearly bene- 
fited, such as the moon, sun and fire. The 
savage has no fixed ideas about religion; he has 
no bible or catech'sm, only some sacred songs 
and customs taughc to him by his mother. 
His religion floats in the air, and each man 
takes as much or as little of it as he likes. 

A negro was worshiping a tree, supposed to 
be his fetish, with an offering of food, when an 
European asked him w'hether he thought that 
the tree could eat. The negro replied, ** Oh, 
the tree is not the fetish; the fetish is a spirit 
and is invisible, but he has descended into the 
tree. Certainly he cannot devour our bodily 
food, but he enjoys its spiritual part and leaves 
behind the bodily part, which we see." 

The stone on which all the kings of England 
have been crowned is an old fetish, and the 
coronation of Queen Victoria is only a survival 
of an old Anglo-Saxon fetishism. So is the 
counting of the beads in the rosary, or kissing 
the cross, an act of fetishism. Portuguese 
sailors fasten the image of St. Anthony to the 
bowsprit of the ship, and kneeling, address it 
in the following words: "St. Anthony, be 
pleased to stay there till thou hast given us a 
fair wind for our voyage." A Spanish captain 
tied a small image of the Virgin Mary to the 
mast of his ship and declared that it shall hang 
there until a favorable wind is granted him. 
This is his fetish, y^t A^ , 

Every religion is a compromise between the 
/ wise and the foolish, the old and the new, and 
the higher the human mind soars in its search 
after divine ideals, the more it becomes neces- 
sary to have symbols to convey to the untutored 
mind of the childlike majority of people who 
are not capable of realizing sublime and subtle 
abstractions. Therefore they worship the thing 
rather than what it was intended to represent. 
While we laugh at the fetish worship of the 
negro, if we would only look around in our 



own churches we would see many fetish objects 
or idols. The Portuguese sailor saw the poor 
negro fetish and made fun of it, yet he wore 
around his neck a like fetish in the form of a 
cross. So there is no religion entirely free 
from fetishism; nor is there any religion which 
consists entirely of fetishism, for back of all 
religion there is a spirit in some form which 
relates to the great creative cause. 

When religions were founded nothing was 
known of science, of astronomy, of geology, or 
of the universe. The earth was the great cen- 
ter around which the sun, moon and stars rose 
and set, like little lamps hung up in the heav- 
enly vaults to light up the firmament. The 
invention of the telescope by Galileo in 1610, 
startled the religious world. The Roman 
Church saw that it would lead to new discov- 
eries in astronomy which would shake the foun- 
dation and then throw down the edifices of 
their religion, which was based upon the bible 
and the stability of the earth, the littleness of 
the sun, moon and stars. The church burned 
in effigy Pierre d'Albano, the author of a work 
on astronomy, in 1327, and in the same year 
burned Cecco d'Astoli, of Florence, for pro- 
claiming that the earth moved. In 1600 the 
church burned Brieno at Rome, lor professing 
the same belief, and imprisoned Campanella 
for twenty-five years because he assented to the 
philosophy of Galileo. They made Galileo 
retract in 1630. It put a close guard on the 
words of Ciampoli in 161 5, and in 1625 it 
burned Antonio de Domines, and no one dared 
to express the idea that the earth was round or 
that it revolved around the sun. Copernicus 
dared not publish his work until his death. 
Kepler, the legi iator of the skies, a Protestant, 
dared not quit England and was persecuted by 
the church and accused of heresy. His aunt 
was burned for sorcery at Weil. His mother 
was accused of sorcery and imprisoned at Stutt- 
gardt in 1615. Roger Bacon, a learned friar 
of Oxford, was thrown into prison because he 
studied physics and astronomy and taught 
magic. 

In France the illustrious Descartes was a 
wanderer and an exile through life. He was 
pursued everywhere by the hate of bigots. He 
was a scientist and an astronomer, and for that 
reason was deemed an enemy to the church 



/il.jj. /L. 



76 



and to God. A learned Jesuit, Fabri, was im- 
prisoned in Rome for saying, in a sermon, that 
** the motion ot the earth once demonstrated, 
the church must interpret in a figurative sense 
those passages of the scripture that are opposed 
to that principle." For they inserted Joshua 
commanding the sun to stand still, a'^ it was so 
written in the word of God, the bible. 

To-day mankind is governed by reason, and 
the ancient religions must be ignored, for they 
are founded on blind faith in what they are 
told. The idea of this earth being the center 
of all objective nature, when in reality it is 
only one of the particles; a grain of sand in the 
vast oceans of worlds that are spread out 
through the skies. Far from affirming that 
everything was made for man, it should be pro- 
claimed that the universe is a continuous whole, 
an unbroken chain, of which mankind is but a 
link; and that he, like all other things, must 
move on to a higher state of existence; that 
there is no retrogression; that on and upward 
is the watchword of all nature, which is moved 
by the laws of evolution and progress, which is 
now an admitted fact by the more intelligent 
thinkers. 

The religion of the twentieth century must 
be a religion of science and not repulsive to 
reason. While old religions have grown great 
in blood and tears, by persecutions and tor- 
ments, amid the suffering of martyrs and cruel 
expressions of the adherents to old doctrines, 
the religion of the future must be prepared by 
the unanimous consent, by universal conver- 
sion, which will rise without the cost of a tear or 
a drop of blood. It will be founded on rea- 
son and justice, and will spread over the whole 
earth as fast as science can beat back ignor- 
ance and superstition. Steam, electricity and 
the printing press are now doing the work and 
laying the foundation of the future religion. 

* ' Religion may transcend phenomena and 
rise to a region which mortal science may not 
enter; indeed, it must do so; the more it 
ascends to the height of its great argument, the 
more it expands and draws nearer to the infin- 
ite; but if it have no basis than emotions, and 
reject all that intuition, science and reason 
may offer for its justification, it may not soar 
to that ' purer ether, that diviner air,' where 
faith is merged in knowledge." According to 



Quatrefages, "religion is a belief in beings 
superior to man, and capable of exercising 
good or evil influence upon his destiny; and 
the conviction that the existence of man is not 
limited to the present life, but that there 
remains for him a future beyond the grave." 
True reason and religion have an eye for 
earth as well as heaven. Like the tall sequoia 
of California, their branches are in the sky, 
but their roots are deeply imbedded in the 
earth. 

So it is necessary to look to the physical 
wants of man as well as his spiritual nature; a 
man can be a better Christian on a full stom- 
ach than on an empty one. It is just as nec- 
essary to send to the heathen the plow and 
the schoolmaster as it is to send the bible and 
the minister. 

All religions aie good and worthy of respect, 
because they enable us to render to God the 
homage of grateful and submissive hearts. It 
brings man into communion with the divine 
mind, and by prayer we link ourselves with 
Him; it elevates us and lifts us up to the im- 
mortal; it makes us better, whether God hears 
our prayer or not, and we know and feel that it 
makes us better. 

But the doctrine of a religion is another 
thing, one that cannot bear or endure the scru- 
tiny of reason. The doctrine of the Buddhist, 
which restricts human life to the earthly exist- 
ence, which denies personal immortality to 
man, absorbing the individual at his death into 
the bosom of the Great All, in Nirvana, is 
revolting pantheism. The doctrine of Mo- 
hammedanism, which has no basis but the 
words of its founder, gathered under the title 
of Koran, and regarded as a divine revelation, 
is not taken in earnest by the Mussulmen them- 
selves, but held as a kind ot political power 
which they enforce with the sword and torch. 
The doctrine of Judaism, which rests on the 
advent, always vainly expecting a savior, a 
messiah, who never comes, the need of whom 
is in no wise apparent, is almost ridiculous and 
absurd. 

The doctrine of original sin, which lies at 
the foundation of Christianity, is illogical and 
unjust. To hold all mankind — the past, pres- 
ent and future — responsible for the indiscretion 
of Eve for eating an apple that was placed on 



77 



a tree to tempt her, an event supposed to have 
occurred some six thousand years ago in an 
obscure corner of Asia, and that, to atone for 
this original sin, besides being driven out of the 
Garden of Eden, which science has shown to 
be a myth, God had to send His only son 
Jesus to be crucified between two thieves, to 
ransom all men, condemned and lost in conse- 
quence of the indiscretion of Adam and Eve, 
who did a good thing by eating the apple that 
opened their eyes to their ignorance and na- 
kedness, is contrary to all reason and common 
sense. 

No one can be honest with himself and say 
that his religious views have never changed 
from childhood to old age. The older we 
grow the more we learn to understand the wis- 
dom of a childlike faith, when we are ready to 
believe anything our parents teach us, until we 
have advanced and learned to think and act 
for ourselves. So the idea of God in childhood 
is different from that of manhood, and that 
idea of religion changes with our intellectual 
development. No two persons have and en- 
tertain the exact ideas of a religious belief. So 
all religion should be progressive and in full 
accord with the prevailing ideas of science and 



the knowledge of things. The religion of the 
ancient Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, Roman or 
Hebrew is not suited to our present state of 
civilization and enlightenment. A religion that 
is not able to grow and live with us as we grow 
and live, is dead and will not admit of pro- 
gress. A religion that is definite and unvary- 
ing in its uniformity, so far from being a sign of 
honesty and life is always a sign of dishonesty 
and death. Every religion that is to be a 
bond of union between the wise and foolish, 
the old and the young, must be pliant, must be 
high and deep and broad, bearing all things, 
believing all things, possessing all things, and 
enduring all things. The more it is so, the 
greater its vitality, the greater its strength and 
the warmer its embrace. 

If religion refuses to accompany science it 
will be left alone: scientific truths are only de- 
structive to that which opposes them. A reli- 
gion which is not contradictory to the laws of 
nature has nothing to fear from science, and 
will progress hand in hand with it. While 
science is limited in research by laws which 
govern matter, that of the spiritual relates 
to the intelligence that directs to the fountain 
from which all knowledge flows. 




CHAPTER VIII. 



RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS; THEIR GODS AND GODDESSES WERE ONLY 

SPIRITS OF DEPARTED SAGES AND HEROES. THEIR MEDIUMS 

FORETOLD THE FUTURE AND THE PAST. 



The Greeks were truly a medium istic race of 
people; they were great lovers of the beautiful 
and . lived close to nature, and followed her 
laws and took their models from her, and in 
so following her they succeeded in rising to an 
elegance of refinement and a perfection of 
beauty that has never been excelled. Her 
poets,' orators, statesmen, warriors, philoso- 
phers, painters and sculptors are the masters 
of all ages, whom all try to emulate but none 
claim to excel. 

Her religion was natural, and her gods and 
goddesses were only progressed human beings 
who had cast off the outer coil, and had be- 
come more perfect, wiser and better, but who 
still retained mortal feelings and passions, that 
made them still linger and take a deep interest 
in the affairs of mortal man. 

The Greek religion differs from all the other 
religions in this: the human character of its 
gods. The gods of Greece are men and wo- 
men idolized and on a large scale, but still 
they are intensely human and but little above 
mortals. The gods of India were vast ab- 
stractions and, as they appear in sculpture, are 
hideous and grotesque idols. The gods of 
Egypt seem to pass away into mere symbols 
and intellectual generalizations; but the gods 
of Greece are persons, warm with life, radiant 
with love and beauty, having their human adven- 
tures, wars and love scrapes. The symbolical 
meaning of each god disappears in his personal 
character. They were not confined to any 
particular sphere, but like mortals mingled to- 
gether, having different interests and occupa- 
tior^, like a number of human beings, young, 
healthy, wise and beautiful and endowed with 
immortality. 



They are not trying to save souls by any 
ascetic means; no intention or bother about 
making progress through the universe by obey- 
ing the laws of nature; but were bent on pleas- 
ure, on having a good time. Fighting, feast- 
ing and making love were their usual occupa- 
tions. If it can be said they cared for govern- 
ing the world, it was in a loose sort of a way, 
with no regular system or laws. They inter- 
fered with human affairs only from time to time 
as it suited their whim or passion. They an- 
nounced no moral law, and they gave no pre- 
cept or example to guide men's consciences. 

According to the Jewish religion man was 
made in the image of God, but according to 
the Greek religion the gods were made in the 
image of man. Heraclitus says, ** Men are 
mortal gods and the gods immortal men." 
The Greeks, like the modern Spiritualist, be- 
lieved that the gods were close to him and in 
his midst; on the summit of the mountain, 
among the clouds, often mingling in disguise, 
and they made themselves visible or invisible 
at their option. They were only advanced 
Greeks, a little higher, but not very much 
wiser or better. They beheld themselves re- 
flected in their deities, and they conjectured 
themselves up in the heavens, and saw with 
pleasure a race of divine Greeks in the skies 
above, corresponding with the race of Greeks 
below. 

The Greek religion, like that of modern 
Spiritualism, was delicious and calculated to 
make men happy and take away the fear of 
death. It was without austerity, asceticism or 
terror; a religion filled with forms of beauty 
and nobleness, kindred to their own, with gods 
who were capricious, indeed, but never stern, 

78 



79 



and seldom jealous or cruel. It was a heaven 
peopled with such a variety of noble forms 
that they could choose from among them as 
their protector the one whom they liked best, 
and possibly themselves be selected as favorites. 
Each person had his guardian deity or spirit; 
the hunter, on a moonlight night, might chance 
to behold the graceful figure of Diana gliding 
through the woods in pursuit of game, while 
the happy inhabitants of Cyprus might come 
suddenly on the fair form of Venus resting in 
a laurel grove. The Dryads could be seen 
glancing among the trees, and theOriads heard 
shouting in the mountains, and the Naiads 
found asleep by the side of their streams. If 
the Greek chose to do so he might take his 
gods as the subject for a poem, the model for a 
statue or a picture. 

The Greek religion did not guide or restrain, 
it only stimulated man. Nowhere on earth, 
before or since, has the human being been 
educated into such a wonderful state of perfec- 
tion or such an entire and perfect unfoldment 
of itself as in ancient Greece. There every 
human tendency and faculty of soul and body 
opened into symmetrical proportions. That 
small country, not larger than the State of 
Maine, carried to perfection in a few centuries 
every human art. 

Everything in Greece was artistic, because 
everything was finished, was done perfectly. 
On that little peninsula ripened the master- 
pieces of epic, tragic, comic, lyric and didac- 
tic poetry; the perfection in every school of 
philosophy, hfstory, oratory, mathematics, 
sculpture and painting. She developed every 
form of government and gave us our model for 
a republic, and she fought and won the great 
battle of the world. Before her time every- 
thing in human literature and art were rude 
and imperfect attempts; since then everything 
has been a rude and imperfect imitation, and it 
was all owing, in a great measure, to her liberal 
spiritual religion. 

The gods of the Greeks were men and wo- 
men; they were not abstract ideas, concealing 
natural powers and laws. They were open as 
sunshine, bright as the moon, and a fair com- 
panion of men and women, idolized and gra- 
cious;- just a little way off, just a little way up 
in the air. It was humanity projected up into 



the skies, a divine creature of more than mor- 
tal beauty, but thrilling with human life and 
human sympathies. 

They had gods and goddesses, muses, fates 
and furies without number. Every woodland, 
lake and stream had its nymphs. Mount 
Olympus swarmed 'with them; here they assem- 
bled and discussed the affairs of nations and 
men. They h?d Jupiter or Jove, the supreme 
god, and Juno, his wife, who sometimes took 
offense at her husband, for his flirtations with 
the other goddesses and sometimes with a beau- 
tiful mortal maid. His attendants were the 
beautiful Hebe and Ganymede. They had a 
brave Mars, the god of war; the wise Minerva, 
who sprang from the brain of Jove, and who 
espoused the cause of Troy; the beautiful 
Venus, that came from the sea-foam, typical of 
the fact that life first had it? origin in the sea. 
She warmed the hearts of men with love, and 
her mischievous boy, Cupid, was always shoot- 
ing arrows into the hearts of the unsuspecting 
youths, and for a joke he would let a stray 
arrow fly at the heart of some old bachelor or 
widower that would send him around among 
the fair maids in search of a wife. And there 
was Diana, the goddess of hunting, with her 
fleet greyhounds, to whom all the sporting fra- 
ternity paid reverence; and the wing-heeled 
Mercury, who flew through the air to carry 
messages from one god to the other. 

They were all live gods and goddesses and 
endowed with passions like mortals. They 
were only a little above man and were invested 
with the power of going where they wished un- 
seen and under no restraint to mortal man; in- 
deed, they were only the spirits of mortals, for 
they claimed that they all had been men and 
women once, but had cast off the mortal coil 
and assumed the robes of immortal gods. 
Even when great men died they were often 
deified and called gods or demi-gods. 

Such a religion was calculated to make a 
people brave and polite and to inspire them 
with a love for the beautiful and grand. With 
the belief that these were gods and goddesses, 
ever ready to commend them in that which 
was good, noble and brave, and condemn them 
in cowardice and infidelity to state, and who 
took an interest in their welfare and rejoiced in 
their valor and success at arms. " To-night," 



80 



said Leonidas to the three hundred brave Spar- 
tans at Thermopylae, " we shall sup with the 
immortal gods!" "On! sons of the Greeks!" 
was the battle-cry of Marathon; "above you 
the spirits of your fathers watch the blows 
which, to preserve their tombs from desecra- 
tion, you strike to-day." 

It was this belief in immortality that inspired 
Homer to write the great heroic poem that in 
time became the bible of the Greeks. The 
gods and goddesses therein pictured are noth- 
ing but tutelary deities that had espoused the 
cause of certain men and nations. They were 
nothing but patron saints that had ascended to 
the spirit land, yet they still lingered around 
their favorite abodes and took an interest in 
mortals. 

" The gods," says Homer in XVH Odyssey, 
page 475, "like strangers from some foreign 
land, assuming different forms, wander through 
cities, watching the justice and injustice of 
man. There were avenging demons and furies 
who haunt the ill-disposed, as there are gods 
who are the protectors of the poor." 

In the twentieth book. Homer puts into the 
mouth of Achilles, after the death of his be- 
loved Patrocles, these words: 

" 'Tis true, 'tis certain, man, though dead, re- 
tains 
Part of himself; the immortal mind remains; 
The form subsists without a body's aid. 
Aerial semblance and empty shade. 

"This night my friend, so late in battle lost. 
Stood at my side, a pensive, plaintive ghost; 
Even now familiar, as in life he came, 
Alas! how different! yet how like the same." 

The fiery imagination and the subtle and 
vigorous intellect of the Greeks peculiarly fit- 
ted them for the reception of the impressions 
from the spiritual, invisible world, as we see 
in the writings of Homer, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, 
Xenophon and others. The following is an 
extract from Hesiod: 

" Invisible the gods are ever nigh, 

Pass through the mist and bend the all-seeing 

eye; 
The men who grind the poor, who wrest the 

right. 



Awless of heaven's revenge, stand naked to 

their sight. 
For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove 
This breathing world, the delegates of Jove; 
Guardians of men, their glance alike surveys 
The upright judgments and the unrighteous 

ways." 

The Greeks saw gods everywhere; the eternal 
snows of Parnassus, the marble temples of 
Athens glistening in the sun, the thousand isles 
nestling in the ^^gean sea, the fragrant groves 
where the philosophers disputed, the fountains 
shadowed by plane trees, the solemn fields of * 
Platsea and Marathon; each and all of these 
had their attendant spirits. A thousand deities 
received homage in a thousand temples, and 
for fear they might have offended some one of 
the many gods, they erected one to the '* Un- 
known God." "That one," St. Paul said, 
"that he worshiped." The Greeks believed 
that the spirits controlled the destinies of men 
and nations, and took part in their affairs; 
were ever present, though everywhere unseen; 
knowing all things yet known to none; eternal, 
invisible and incomprehensible. Gods who 
mingled visibly in the actions of men, who 
clothed themselves with material forms and 
lead them on to victory; who shared the pas- 
sions of humanity and sympathized with their 
infirmities, who controlled the present and gave 
omens of the future, were the beings that the 
Greeks loved or feared, and bowed down to 
to do homage and erect temples. 

Their poetry is full of sublimity, represent- 
ing one god as appearing in the clouds and 
hurling down thunderbolts into the midst of the 
contending armies of earth. At times the 
gods get angry and take sides in the affairs of 
men, as in the case of the siege of Troy. A 
god is often represented as wandering through 
the country in the form of a beardless youth, 
challenging men to play with him on the lyre. 
A goddess snatches from out the midst of bat- 
tle an endangered warrior, whose noble form 
she has become enamored of, and thus saves 
his life by enveloping him in a mist and remov- 
ing him from sight. Another goddess, mounted 
on her celestial steed, rushing through the air 
from capital to capital, arousing surrounding 
nations to take up arms in the defense of some 



81 



common cause that she has espoused. They 
filled the earth and skies with beings of inter- 
est, and made life a romance, and it was a 
pleasure to die in the defense of country and 
the right. It infused into the heart a love of 
country, bravery and devotion that has never 
been equaled, a refinement and a culture that 
has never been excelled, and a faultless phy- 
sique and loveliness and beauty that has in all 
ages of the world been the model of every 
artist and the pride of every master to imi- 
tate. 

They worshiped the beautiful, and her artists 
and painters strove to make their pictures and 
statues perfect. Through this beautiful my- 
thology constantly breaks the radiance of the 
spiritual world, which informs us that these 
myths are only the representatives of beings in 
the spirit land that take an interest in the affairs 
of man, but were so clouded in mystic lore 
that they were taken for heathen rites — an 
abominable absurdity — until its true meaning 
was interpreted in the light of modern Spirit- 
ualism, and proven that these gods and god- 
desses were merely progressed human beings in 
a higher state of development. 

The Greeks had their mediums through whom 
they communicated with the different tutelary 
gods and goddesses, patron saints and spirits. 
They never went to war or did any important 
act without consulting their oracles, and their 
wonderful predictions, according to the histo- 
rians have been fulfilled. The most renowned 
of the oracles was at Delphi, where the Pytho- 
ness, a priestess or medium, sat upon a tripod 
over a fissure in the rocks, from which arose a 
vapor that had an inspiring effect on the me- 
dium. Soon she would go into a trance, like 
some of our modern mediums, and then, gen- 
erally in poetry or doggerel verse, she would 
utter some statement of a prophetic nature, 
which would run about as follows: 
" See I number the sands; I fathom the depths 

of the oceans — ■ 
Hear even the dumb; comprehend, too, the 

thoughts of the silent; 
Now, perceive I am an odor, an odor it seem- 

eth of lambs' flesh; 
As boiling it seemeth, commixed with the flesh 

of a tortoise; 
Brass is beneath and with brass is it covered." 



This was given in response to a question of 
Crcesus, of Lydia, who had sent an embassa- 
dor to Delphi to test its truthfulness. He had 
at that hour gone into the kitchen of his palace 
and cut in pieces a lamb and a tortoise, and 
placed it in a brass vessel and covered it with 
a brass cover and commenced to cook it. This 
was a satisfactory test, so he sent back his em- 
bassador with three thousand oxen, numerous 
gold and silver vessels, a gold lion, one hundred 
and seventy ingots of the same metal, with a 
girdle and a necklace of incredible value. De- 
positing them before the shrine of the goddess, 
the embassador of Crcesus demanded whether 
he should go to war against the Persians. The 
oracle replied, " When a mule becomes the 
ruler of the Persian people, then, O tender- 
footed Lydian, flee to the rocky banks of Her- 
mos, make no halt, and care not to blush for 
thy cowardice." This Croesus misunderstood, 
not aware that Cyprus was the son of a Median 
princess and a Persian of humble condition, 
and was the ruler prefigured under the type of 
the 7;iuk king. Pie made war upon the Per- 
sians and soon he was forced to flee, as the 
oracle had predicted. 

These oracles became the recipient of vast 
gifts from kings and rich people that consulted 
them, and they were consulted by a far greater 
number of people than now-a-days consult our 
mediums; while then, as now, they made many 
mistakes, and there were impostors then as 
now, who humbugged and imposed upon the 
credulous. The belief in their predictions was 
then universal, and no general would go to war 
without consulting them. Even Alexander the 
Great consulted the oracle at Delphi, but the 
medium said that she was not ready; the spirit 
did not move her. Alexander took her by the 
arm and said she must give him a sitting. 
While leading her to the tripod, she said, " Al- 
exander, thou art irresistible." He at once let 
her go and started off. She called him back, 
and said that she did not mean that, but to 
wait, she had something more to say. " No," 
said Alexander, ''that is enough." He imme- 
diately returned to his army and told them 
what the oracle had said, " that he was irre- 
sistible," and it was the battle-cry of the army 
which ever lead his cohorts to victory. He 
was warned by the magi not to enter Babylon, 



82 



*'that once within her walls he must assuredly 
die/' For a while he encamped outside of its 
walls, but being over-persuaded by the doubt- 
ing philosophers of Anaxagoras, he entered the 
city, and in a few months he died in a de- 
bauch. It is evident that Alexander had much 
faith in the oracles, as he visited Jupiter Am- 
nion in the Libyan desert, and left many valua- 
ble presents. 

Plutarch, in writing about the oracles, says: 
"It would be impossible to enumerate all the 
instances in which the Pythia proved her power 
of foretelling events, and the facts of them- 
selves are so well and generally known that it 
would be useless to bring forth new evidence. 
Her answers, though submitted to the severest 
scrutiny, have never proved false or incorrect." 
And then he cites many instances, among them 
the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which over- 
whelmed the cities of Pompeii and Herculane- 
um; the defeat of Xerxes' army at Marathon 
and his navy at Salamis, etc. 

Lycurgus, the great Spartan law-giver, con- 
sulted the oracle of Delphi. Being satisfied 
of the correctness of the answer he received, 
he left his native land never to return. 

The most renowned of these oracles were 
those of Phocis, at Claros in Ionia, at Delos, 
at Delphi, at Didyma on Mount Ismenus in 
Boetia, at Larissa among the Argives, and at 
Heliopolis in Egypt. The pythonesses or me- 
diums were selected for their great mediumistic 
power. They were females, virgins of great 
purity, and they were never allowed to marry. 
Then, as now, it was a gift confined to the 
few, and they divined the future and told the 
past, in many instances, with great accuracy, 
according to the writings of the ancient histo- 
rians. 

Herodotus and Plutarch give many instances 
of the truthfulness of these oracles, and relate 
how the spirits defended the temple at Delphi 
from the Persians, who went there to pillage it 
of its vast wealth. ''At first the temple was 
as silent as the grave, then all at once a deaf- 
ening roar of thunder and flashes of lightning 
burst forth, and superhuman voices were heard 
to come forth from the shrine; huge rocks 
were loosened upon the summit of Parnassus 
and rolled down amongst the invaders and lev- 
eled them like grass. The rest were affrighted 



and fled in dismay." And this story is as well 
authenticated as many which are related in the 
bible of the invisible arm aiding the children of 
Israel in battle. 

Socrates was a clairvoyant medium from his 
youth. He had unearthly monitions, a "di- 
vine voice," as he termed it, attended him; not 
to urge him to do good, but to restrain from 
evil. It was equally busy in the most momen- 
tous and the most trifling actions of life — at 
Athens and at Corinth, when he lifted his 
spear against the enemies of his country; when 
he bore with meekness the revilings of the 
shrewish Xantippe; when, in the height of 
his success, he stood surrounded by Plato, 
Alcibiades and others of the most noble youths 
of Greece; and, finally, when he became old 
and feeble and was persecuted, and he calmly 
prepared himself to die, this "divine voice" 
whispered to him sweet words of hope and 
consolation. 

Xenophon said of him, "The little voice" 
imparted to Socrates a knowledge of the perils 
that awaited him and of the life to come, 
which so inspired him that he calmly awaited 
death as a pleasure that would free him from 
the mortal body and enable him to assume one 
of eternal glory. 

Plato relates many instances where Socrates 
gave warnings to his friends of danger, and 
thereby saved their lives. One he gives of a 
noble Athenian, Timarchus, "for," said Soc- 
rates, " the spirit has just given me the accus- 
tomed sign that some danger menaces you." 
And no one can read of this great philosopher 
and not be impressed with the idea that he 
was not in communion with spirits who placed 
so much wisdom in his mouth. 

Gibbon, speaking of Julian, says: "We 
may learn from his faithful friend, the orator 
Libanus, that he lived in a perpetual inter- 
course with the gods and goddesses (the spirits), 
that they descended upon earth to enjoy the 
conversation of their favorite hero, that they 
gently interrupted his slumbers by touching 
his hands or his hair, that they warned him of 
every impending danger, and conducted him 
by their infallible wisdom in every action of 
his life." 

The present forms of communication with 
the spirits by table-tipping and slate-writing 



83 



were also well known to the ancients. Am- 
mianus Marcellinus says that in the reign of 
the Emperor Valens, A. D., 371, some Greeks, 
skilled in theurgy, were brought to trial for 
attempting to ascertain, by magic arts, who 
would succeed to the throne [see page 83]. 
This mode was similar to that now adopted 
by many investigators of modern Spiritualism. 
And Tertullian says, in reproaching some of 
the Christian fathers: "Do not you, magicians, 
call ghosts and departed souls from the shades 
below, and by their infernal charms represent 
an infinite number of delusions. And how do 
they perform all this but by the assistance of 
evil angels and spirits, by which they are able 
to make stools and tables prophecy.'' Conse- 
quently it is self-evident, whether we take inco 
consideration that evil or good spirits were 
concerned, that this fact goes to show that 
seances were held and tables tipped over fifteen 
centuries ago. 

Ancient history is full of instances that go 
to establish the fact that man had communica- 
tions with spirits of the departed. The omen^; 
that attended the assassination of Caesar, the 
apparition of Brutus, at Philippi, and Sylea, the 
night before he died, saw in a vision the manner 
of his end. Pliny, the younger, gives an ac- 
count of a remarkably haunted house that was 
purchased by the philosopher Athenodorus, on 
his arrival at Athens. He was struck with its 
remarkable cheapness, and was informed that 
no one would live in it. "He said he had 
nothing to fear." At midnight a noise was 
heard and the ghastly figure of a skeleton passed 
through the apartments, dragging a rusty chain, 
and motioned him to follow. He arose from 
his table, where he sat writing and follow^ed. 
The spirit preceded him to an inner court of 
the mansion and then vanished. He marked 
the spot by laying some leaves where the appa- 
rition designated, and returned to his study. 
The next morning he sought the magistrates of 
the city. A search was made and a skeleton 
loaded with a rusty chain was dug up at the 
spot that he had marked. He had the skeleton 
removed and properly interred, and it never 
appeared again; so it proved a lucky invest- 
ment. 

Macrobius says that Trajan, previous to his 
invasion of Parthia, consulted the oracle of 



Heliopolis. It returned a blank sealed paper. 
At this he laughed and said that as he did not 
believe in the oracle that they had sent him a 
proper answer. He sent again, this time the 
oracle returned a vine cut in pieces and wrapped 
in a linen cloth, as a symbol that he in like 
manner should be, should he return. He died 
in the East and his body was returned, cut up 
and wrapped in cloth. 

Strabo and Pliny assure us that in the reign 
of Augustus, the priests of a temple at the foot 
of Mount Loracti, dedicated to the goddess 
Feronia, had been known to walk barefooted 
over great quantities of glowing embers; and 
Strabo says, "The same ordeal was practiced 
by the priestesses of the goddess Astabores in 
Cappadocia." 

In speaking of mediums among the ancients, 
a writer in the London Examiner says: 

" How many persons who practice, or who 
discredit the fashionable exercise of table-turn- 
ing and spirit-invoking are aware that, ages ago, 
before our ancestors had tables to turn, the 
process was a well recognized one in Imperial 
Rome and Constantinople ? Of abnormal 
manifestations of disturbance in the ordinary 
range of nobility among human beings, we hear 
nothing in ancient history, but we hear enough 
of the manner in which the Greeks and Romans 
in early Christian ages endeavored by assumed 
spiritual agency, to influence the movements of 
the legs of tables, to make us sensible that 
modern processes for effecting the same end 
are inferior in point of elegance and awe-in- 
spiring effect. This, we think, will scarcely be 
denied by those best acquainted with the 
present method of conducting a seance when 
they learn the Roman method of operation, 
which was as follows: When a family or an 
individual desired to obtain information in re- 
gard to some friend beyond the pale of human 
knowledge, recourse was had to a priest, that is, 
a professor practiced in the arts of superhuman 
intelligence. Accordingly, when the appointed 
day came, the of^ciating medium appeared in 
white, and bearing in his hands a small table 
standing on a tripod base. Pausing at the 
entrance door he waited till the threshold and 
the atrium had been sprinkled with aromatic 
and symbolic fluids before he passed on into 
the principal apartment of the house, and de- 



84 



posited his tripod over the center of the. floor. 
This table, which, as we are informed, must be 
made of laurel-wood, cut under awe-inspiring 
auspices, had attached to its base a metallic 
hoop encircling it, on which the letters of the 
Greek alphabet were graven, while its upper 
rim bore a number of catgut strings, to which 
a silvered leaden ball was suspended. When, 
after due course of prayers, incantations and 
various gentle aids to motion, the table 
began to rotate, the priest and his attendants, 
who sat on the floor, forming a circle round 
it, noted down each letter that was in turn 
touched by the extending strings of the rotating 
tripod. These letters were put together, and 
the words they formed accepted as the answer 
of the oracle. In the case of table-turning in 
the latter days of the Empire, which has been 
trasmitted to us, we find that a body of con- 
spirators, being desirous of ascertaining if the 
pretender Theodorus, whose cause they ad- 
vocated, would be the successor of the Emperor 
Valens, tested the question by this interdicted 
mode of divination; and conceiving that the 
letters Th E O D had been struck, there could 
be no doubt of the fulfillment of their wishes, 
they hastily overthrew the table, hurried the 
priests out of the house, and dispersed, lest 
their evil deeds might be detected by the Im- 



perial officers appointed to enforce the penal- 
ties incurred by dealers in magic. Fate, how- 
ever, was too strong for them, for Theodorus 
was seized and put to death, as history can 
testify, while Theodosius succeeded to Valens, 
and thus relieved the oracle from the charge of 
mendacity." 

But we need not marvel at these strange 
stories of profane history, for the Holy Bible is 
filled with it, from Genesis to Revelations. 
Aaron's rod was turned into a serpent and 
swallowed up the rods transformed into ser- 
pents by the Egyptian magicians. The He- 
brew children walked through the fiery furnace; 
Jacob wrestled with an angel; the walls of Jer- 
icho were overthrown at the sound of a ram's 
horn; Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of 
salt; the witch of Endor raised the spirit of 
Samuel; Abraham conversed with angels and 
ate veal cutlets with them in his tent; and a 
voice cried out to Abraham and told him of a 
ram entangled in the vines, which he could 
ofler on his altar as a sacrifice, instead of his 
son Isaac; Elijah was fed by the ravens; the 
children of Israel were fed with manna; Christ 
on the mount of Transfiguration saw and talked 
with Moses and Elias; Peter was let out of 
prison; and Christ rose from the dead. 




CHAPTER IX. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 



Christianity. 

Christianity comes from the Greek word 
Christos which signifies washed over or anointed, 
and is the same as the translation of the Hebrew- 
word Messiah, Messias, or Mashiach. These 
words alike mean the anointed one. Kings and 
high-priests were consecrated to their office by 
being anointed. The anointed 07ie, therefore, 
means the chosen, ordained, crowned or conse- 
crated to a high office; christiioniai signifies to 
be good, kind and merciful; christotheia signifies 
goodness of heart, chresteriso signifies to proph- 
esy, chresies means a prophet, chresmos is the 
oracle or the divine response and chrisma is the 
anointing oil which was anciently freely used on 
Christian converts and still continues in the unc- 
tion of the Catholic church. Thus chres or chris 
is the Greek expression for that which is good 
and beautiful, or which comes from heaven. 
The word christos was so closely associated 
with divinity that it was often applied by the 
Greeks to Apollo and other gods. The world 
has had many christos or saviors, and all 
nations have had their christos or christs. 
Therefore Jesus Christ is the name applied to 
the Hebrew christos, the anointed prophet. 
Mary used oil to anoint Christ, and wiped his 
feet with her hair to show her profound vener- 
ation for him. 

Christianity is a name full of power and 
eloquent meaning, a divine and inspired 
religion, lull ot love and heroism. It cannot be 
monopolized by the believers in Jesus Christ, 
but includes all who embrace and follow the 
instructions of Jesus Christ and imitate his 
purity of life, and who attempt to live in 
perfect* accord with the divine law, so as to 
embody in themselves the highest inspiration of 
which he is capable. 



It allows a large range of belief and worship. 
One may be a Christian and believe that Christ 
was only a good man; another may believe 
Christ a god equal to the father in heaven, and 
he can be a Christian; another can worship the 
Virgin Mary, his mother, and be a Christian. 
Anyone may be a Christian if he goes to church 
and contributes to the support of the gospel; 
in a word all who belong to the Christian 
nations, whether he be a Jew or Gentile, 
Atheist or Infidel, is according to the definition 
of the term, a Christian. It represents and 
expresses a civilization. 

Advent of Christ. 

The time was propitious for the introduction 
of a new religion. Paganism was in its last 
throes; Jupiter's, Manu's and Moses' altars had 
no longer believers, and the intelligent people 
had discarded the myth, and the masses were 
ready to swallow any new religion offered. 
Pythagoras, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and 
Cicero had evicted the myth of the Olympian' 
gods from the minds of the intelligent thinking 
people. Their writings, like that of modern 
science, had undermined the dogmas of the 
fabulous mythology. Cicero wondered that 
two priests could look into each other's faces 
and not laugh at the trick. For two ages past, 
Pyrrha, Cimon, Sextus, Empiricus and Enesidius 
no longer believed in anything and Lucretius 
had just written his book on nature. 

On the other side, those old and decaying 
theologies of Moses left in the spirit of the 
multitude the idea of a Redeemer, which 
ancient India had bequeathed to all the 
nations; and the wearied people waited for 
something new to replace their extinct beliefs, 
to nourish their energy, paralyzed by doubt, 
and in great need of hope. 

85 



86 



It was then that a poor Jew, born of the 
lower class, appeared, possessed of remarkable 
mediumistic power, and started on the mission 
of reforming man and checking the growth of 
materialism. He soon gathered around him 
many followers, and persecution did its work 
"and the blood of martyrs became the seed 
of the church." 

Primitive Christianity had its origin in small 
scattered groups, organized into secret soci- 
eties with passwords, grips and signs, which 
enabled the initiated to recognize each other. 
To avoid the unrelenting persecutions of their 
enemies they were obliged to meet in the night 
in secret places; in caves, deserted catacombs, 
woods and mountain fastnesses. From the first 
appearance of Jesus and his twelve disciples, 
they sought refuge in quiet places, in the 
wilderness and among their friends in Bethany. 
It is evident that they were rather quiet and 
did not attract much attention among the 
profane writers. Renan shows that Philo, 
who lived in Palestine while the "glad tidings" 
were being preached, never heard of him. 
Josephus, the Hebrew historian, who was born 
three years after the crucifixion of Christ, only 
makes a short mention of him, and even that 
bears the marks of^interpolation. 

Suetonius, the secretary of Adrian, who 
wrote the history of the Emperor Claudius in 
the second century, says that he (Claudius) 
banished all the Jews, who were continually 
making disturbances at the instigation of one 
Crestus, evidently meaning Christ. 

The Emperor Adrian, in a letter to Servia- 
nus, says, "That he believes the new sect 
(Christians) were worshipers of Serapis, an 
Egyptian deity; and Christ is represented as 
Serapis, wearing long hair, turned back, falling 
down on his back and shoulders like a woman, 
his whole person enveloped in drapery, reach- 
ing his feet." [See "Gnostics and their Re- 
mains," page 68.] " There can be no doubt," 
remarks the same author, " that the head of 
Serapis, marked, as the face is, by a grave and 
pensive majesty, supplied the first idea for the 
conventional portraits of the Savior." 

The Gnosis, or Gnosticism, comprehended 
the doctrine of the magi — the wise men of the 
East who followed the star to Bethlehem — and 
they were in direct communication with the 



Divine mind, which revealed to them these 
facts, through some of the modes of spiritual 
manifestation. They were not Jews, they were 
heathen who had come from the East, and 
were skilled in the arts of nature and knew by 
certain signs they were to know him, and so 
informed Herod of his whereabouts. 

Christ said, " God is a spirit and they who 
worship him worship in spirit and truth." Those 
who follow Christ's teachings embrace the doc- 
trines of Spiritualism, and consequently there 
should be no antagonism between Spiritualism 
and the other Christian religions, as they are 
all derived from the same source. Christ said, 
"I will be with you even to the end of the 
world." He evidently meant that his spirit 
would be with them. And the idea that Christ 
would come again and reign on earth was taken 
from the mistaken idea that he should be rein- 
carnated in the flesh again, which is the belief 
of the Buddhists that Buddha is ever reincar- 
nating in the person of a child. 

Christ and his apostles were possessed of 
wonderful mediumistic powers, but in time this 
mediumistic power was lost in the cold em- 
brace of the Christian churches, who did not 
follow his sublime teachings and preach his 
gospel to the whole world. In losing this me- 
diumistic power the churches have become ma- 
terialistic, and for that reason they oppose the 
doctrine of modern Spiritualism, which is in- 
tended to take man back to the pure stream of 
religion that he taught in his sermon on the 
mount. Christ received his messages direct 
from the Divine mind, and there is no reason 
why it cannot be done by others as well as by 
him. 

The laws of the natural and spirit world are 
always the same. Philo and other contempo- 
rary historians say the Essenes were a sect of 
pure and holy men, which arose about one 
hundred years before the advent of Jesus of 
Nazareth; and it is supposed by some that he 
belonged to that order. The doctrines, man- 
ners and customs of this sect resembled that of 
Jesus and his disciples, and his sermon on the 
mount is full of their aphorisms. This pure 
and simple spiritual religion taught by the early 
Christians perished about the time that Con- 
stantine the Great usurped its name and fame 
in order to justify his own iniquitous and atro- 



87 



cious murders, and to give him strength by 
enlisting the Christian: under his banner; and 
it then became engrafted on Roman paganism. 
The shaved headed augurs were changed into 
monks and priests, and the vestal vjrgins into 
nuns and sisters of charity; and the burning 
of incense, is a vestige of the fire-worship- 
ers, who always kept a fire burning in a lamp 
suspended near or on the altar. After it be- 
came the state religion, with the Emperor Con- 
stantine at its head, it assumed a power that 
enforced its creeds upon the unbelievers, that 
made the name of Jesus known to the whole 
Roman empire, which at that time governed 
the civilized world. 

Ammonius Sacchas, the great Alexandrian 
teacher and philosopher, the theodtaoktis, in his 
numerous works a century and a half before 
St. Augustine, acknowledged Jesus as "an 
excellent man, and the friend of (}od." He 
always maintained that the ultimate design of 
Jesus was not to abolish the intercourse with 
gods and demons (spirits), but simply to purify 
the ancient religion; that "the religion of the 
multitude went hand in hand with philosophy, 
and with her had shared the fate of being by 
degrees corrupted and obscured with mere hu- 
man conceits, superstitions and lies; that it 
ought, therefore, to be brought back to its 
original pin'ity , by purging it of this dross and 
expounding it upon philosophical principles; 
and that all Christ had in view was to 
reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity 
and purity the wisdom of the arkcients." 

All great religious reformers were pure at the 
beginning. The first followers of Buddha as 
well as the disciples of Jesus were men of great 
austerity and the highest morality, as in the 
case of Sakya-Muni, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, 
St. Paul, Ammonius and Sakkas. The great 
Gnostic leaders, if less successful, were not 
less virtuous in practice nor less morally pure. 
Marcion, Basilides and Valentinus were renown- 
ed for their ascetic lives. The Nicolaitanes, 
if they did not belong to the great body of the 
Ophites, were numbered among the small sects 
which were absorbed in it at the beginning of 
the second century. The Gnostics were a sect 
of philosophers that arose in the first century 
of Christianity, and they formed a system of 
theology agreeable to that of Pythagoras and 



Plato, and in conformity to that of the script- 
ures. They held that all religions had their 
origin in secret societies. 

The innumerable gems and amulets are a 
proof of this. They had their symbols, signs 
and secret workings that the outside world 
knew nothing of, by which means they were 
able to know each other. The Kabalists were 
the first to embellish the universal Logos with 
such terms as " Light of Light,'' the messenger 
of life and light (see John i), and we find these 
expressions adopted z>/ ioto by the Christians, 
with the addition of nearly all the Gnostic 
terms, such as Pleroma (fullness), Archons, 
yEons, etc., as to the ''first born"\.he first 
and the " only begotten." These terms are as 
old as the world. Origen shows the word 
"Logos," as existing among the Brahmins. 
The Brahmins say that the God is light, not 
such as one sees, nor such as sun and fire; but 
they have the God Logos, not articulate, the 
Logos of the Gnosis, through whom the high- 
est mysteries of the Gnosis are seen by the 
wise — those of clairvoyant sight. The Acts 
and the fourth Gospel are full of Gnostic ex- 
pressions. The Kabalistic terms " God's first- 
born emanated from the Most High," together 
with that ^vhich is the " spirit of the a?iointed;" 
and again, "they called Him the anointed of 
the highest," are reproduced in spirit and sub- 
stance by the author of the Gospel of St, John. 
" That was the t7'ue light, and the light shineth 
in darkness." "And the word was 7nade 
flesh . " 

The " Christ " and the " Logos " are terms 
which existed ages before Christianity. The 
Oriental Gnosis was studied long before the 
days of Moses, and we have to seek for the 
origin of all these words in the Archaic periods 
of the primeval Asiatic philosophy. Peter's 
second epistle and Jude's fragment, preserved 
in the new Testament, show by their phraseol- 
ogy that they belonged to the Kabalistic Orien- 
tal order, for they use the same expressions as 
did the Christian Gnostics, who built or took 
a part of their system from the Oriental Kab- 
ala, and that it was grafted on it. " Presump- 
tuous are they [the Ophites], self-willed, they 
are not afraid to speak evil of dignities," says 
Peter in Second Epistle, ii: lo. The original 
model for the latter is the abusive Tertullian 



88 



and Irenseus. " Likewise (even as Sodom and 
Gomorrah) also, these filthy dreamers defile 
the flesh, despise dominion and speak evil 
of dignities," says Jude, repeating the very 
words of Peter and thereby using expressions 
consecrated in the Kabala. Dof?iinion is the 
''empire," the tenth of the Kabalistic sephiron. 
They held that the types of the creation, or 
the attributes of the Supreme Being, are 
through the emanations of Adam Kadmon. 

Thus, when the Nazarenes and other Gnostics 
of the more Platonic tendency twitted the 
Jews as '* abortions who worship their god 
Qurbo, Adonai" we need not wonder at the 
wrath of those who had accepted the old Mo- 
saic system, but at that of Peter and Jude, who 
claimed to be followers of Jesus, and dissent 
from the views of him who also was a Nazarene. 
The dispersed Nazarenes were a secret sect that 
had no affiliation with the Jews, and they were 
a remnant of the ancient Phcenicians, that still 
lived on the other side of the Jordan and ex- 
tended far into the interior. 

According to the Kabala, the empire of 
dominion is "the consuming fire and his wife 
is the temple or church, and powers and digni- 
ties (spirits) are subordinate genii of the arch- 
angels and angels of the Sohar." These ema- 
nations are the very life and soul of the Kab- 
ala and Zoroasterism, And the Talmud, the 
sacred book of the Jews, is borrowed from the 
Zend-Avesta, the sacred book or bible of the 
Persians and fire-worshipers; therefore, by 
adopting the views of Peter, Jude and other 
apostles, the Christians have become but a dis- 
senting sect of the Persians, for they do not 
even interpret the meaning of all such powers 
as the true Kabalists do. 

St. Paul, warning his converts against the 
worshiping of angels, showed how well he ap- 
preciated, even so early as his period, the dan- 
gers of borrowing from a mythical doctrine, the 
philosophy of which could be rightly interpre- 
ted but by its well-learned adherents, the Magi 
and the Jewish Tanaim. In Colossians ii: i8, 
he says, *' Let no man beguile you of your 
reward in a voluntary humanity and worshiping 
of angels, intruding into those things which he 
hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly 
mind," is a sentence laid right at the door of 
Peter and his companions. 



In the Talmud Michael is prince of water, 
who has seven inferior spirits subordinate to 
him. He is the patron, the guardian angel of 
the Jews, as Daniel informs us. And the 
Greek Ophites, who identified him with their 
Ophimorphous, the personified creation of en- 
vy and malice, of Ilda-Baoth, thet Demiurgus 
(creator of the material world), and undertook 
to prove that he, Samuel, the Hebrew prince 
of the evil spirits or Persian deos, were natur- 
ally regarded by the Jews as blasphemers. 

In all ages and among all nations there is a 
tendency of the ignorant and designing to 
create gods out of ministering spirits and angels 
that come in contact with mediums, seers and 
prophets, which soon corrupts the pure and 
monotheistic belief in one God, out of whose 
divine will and power all things have evolved. 

It is evident that Jesus was a pure and good 
man, endowed with a great love of the pure 
and simple religion, and it is clearly apparent 
that he struggled hard to reform the Jews; but 
they did not understand and appreciate him, 
and they therefore crucified him; and after the 
elapse of three hundred years he was deified as 
one of the godhead, and from his teachings 
and those of his disciples, has arisen the 
Christian church, and over the question of his 
divinity rivers of blood have been shed to 
make him a god, and to enforce the creeds and 
dogmas of the church. 

St. Paul was the true founder of Christian 
theology. This indomitable disciple was a man 
of learning, weH versed in the mysterious doc- 
trines of the Gnostics, and wrote in the true 
Kabalistic spirit of the masters of the Lord 
Jesus Christ; and the manner of his conversion 
is one of the best physical manifestations of 
the spirits on record. It is evident that St. 
Paul, believing in occult powers in the world, 
" unseen," but ever " present," says, " Ye 
walked according to the ceon of this world, ac- 
cording to Archon (Ilda Baoth, the De?niurg), 
that has the domination of the air," and *' we 
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
the dominations, the powers, the lords of dark- 
ness, the mischievousness of spirits in the upper 
regions." This sentence " ye were dead in sin 
and error," for "ye walked according to the 
Archon," or (Ilda-Baoth,) the god and creator 
and master of the Ophites, shows unequivo- 



89 



cally that, isc, Paul, notwithstanding some 
dissensions with the more important doctrines 
of the Gnostics, shared more or less their cos- 
mogonical views on the emanations; 2d, that 
he was fully aware that this Demiurg, whose 
Jewish name was Jehovah, was not the God 
preached by Jesus; and now, if we compare 
the doctrine of St. Paul with the religious 
views of Peter and Jude, we find that not only 
did they worship Michael, the archangel, but 
that they also 7-everenced Sa/an, because the 
latter was also an angel before his fall. This 
they do quite openly, and abuse the Gnostics 
for speaking "evil " of him. (See Peter's Sec- 
ond Epistle). 

No one can deny the following: Peter, when 
denouncing those who are not afraid to speak 
evil of '' dignities," adds immediately, *' where- 
as angels which are greater in power and might 
bring not railing accusations against them (the 
dignities) before the Lord." Who are the 
*' dignities" referred to? Jude, in his general 
epistle, makes the meaning of the word as clear 
as day. The ''dignities" are the devils, and 
the devils are evil spirits. Jude when com- 
plaining of the disrespect shown by the Gnos- 
tics to powers and do?ni7iions, uses the very 
words of Peter: " And yet Michael, the arch- 
angel, when contending with the devil (evil 
spirit) he disputed about the body of Moses, 
durst not bring against him a railing accusation, 
but said, 'the Lord rebuke thee.' " Is this 
not plain enough to show that they did? if not 
then we have the Kabala to prove who were 
the dignities. 

In Deuteronomy xxxiv: 6, we find that the 
" Lord Himself buried Moses in a valley of 
Moab, and no man knoweth of his sepulchre 
unto this day." This biblical lapsus linguce of 
Jude gives a strong coloring to the assertions of 
some of the Gnostics. They claimed only 
what was secretly taught by the Jewish Kaba- 
lists themselves, to-wit: that the highest su- 
preme God was unknown and invisible, "the 
king of light is a closed eye;" that Ilda-Baoth, 
the Jewish second Adam, was the real Demi- 
urg; and that lao, Adonai, Saboth and Eloi 
were the quaternary emanations which formed 
the unity of the God of the Hebrews — Je- 
hovah. Moreover, the latter was also called 
Michael, the archangel, by Samuel, and re- 



garded as an angel several degrees removed 
from the godhead. The disciples were unedu- 
cated, except St. Paul, and they drew their 
knowledge from the unseen world like many of 
the mediums of modern Spiritualism, who often 
confound the most learned doctors and men of 
science. 

The Chaldean version of the Pentateuch, 
made by the well-known Babylonian divine 
Onkelos, was regarded as the most authoritive 
of all; and it is according to this learned rabbi 
that Hillel, and and other tanaim after him, 
held that the being who appeared to Moses in 
the burning bush, on Mount Sinai, and who 
finally buried him, was the angel of the Lord, 
Memro, and not the Lord himself, and that he 
whom the Hebrews of the old Testament mis- 
took for lahoh, was his messenger, one of his 
sons or emanations. All this goes to establish 
but one logical conclusion, merely that the 
Gnostics were far superior to the disciples in 
knowledge, learning and the religious doctrines 
of the Jews. 

There have existed in all ages men who be- 
longed to secret societies under different names 
— Esoteric, Brahminical, Buddhistical, Chal- 
dean, Hermetic, Ophite, Gymnosophites and 
Magi philosophers. The Sufis and Rashees, of 
Kashmere, instituted a kind of international 
and universal Freemasonry among the Esoteric 
societies; and says Higgins, "These Rashees 
are the Essenians, Carmelites or Nazarites of the 
Temple, and it was from the latter Christ de- 
rived his knowledge, as he was a Nazarene, and 
the priest or masters understood the occult sci- 
ence, under the name of Regenerating Fire. 
This science for more than three thousand 
years was the peculiar possession of the Indian 
and Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge 
of which Moses was initiated at Heliopolis, 
where he was educated; and Jesus was educated 
among the Essenian priests of Egypt or Judea, 
and by the knowledge thus gained these two 
great reformers, particularly the latter, wrought 
many of the miracles mentioned in the script- 
ures." 

"The Christian Gnostics sprang into exist- 
ence towards the beginning of the second cen- 
tury, and just at the time when the Essenes 
most mysteriously faded away, which indicates 
that they were the identical Essenes, and, more- 



90 



over, pure Chrisiists^ viz: they believed, and 
were those who best understood what one of 
their own brethren had preached. In insisting 
that the letter Iota, mentioned by Jesus, (Mat. 
v:i8,) indicated a secret doctrine in relation to 
the ten aeons, is sufficient to demonstrate to 
a Kabalist th-it Jesus belonged to the Free- 
masonry of those days; for I, which is iota in 
Greek, has no other name in other languages, 
and is, as it was among the Gnostics of those 
days, a pass-word, meaning the ' Sckipture of 
the Father,' in Eastern brotherhoods which 
exist to this day." 

"It comes to this," writes Irenneus, com- 
plaining of the Gnostics, '^they neither con- 
sent to the scriptures nor tradition;" and why 
should we wonder at that, when even the com- 
mentators of the nineteenth century, with noth- 
ing but fragments of Gnostic manuscripts to 
compare with the voluminous writings of their 
calumniators, have been enabled to detect 
fraud on every page ? How much more must 
the polished and learned Gnostics, with all 
their advantages of personal observation and 
knowledge of the facts, have realized the stu- 
pendous scheme of fraud that was being con- 
summated before their very eyes } Why should 
they accuse Celsus of maintaining that their re- 
ligion was all based on the speculations of 
Plato, with the difference that his doctrines 
were far more pure and rational than theirs, 
when we find Sprengell, seventeen centuries 
later, writing the following: ''Not only did 
they (the Christians) think to discover the dog- 
mas of Plato in the books of Moses, but, more- 
over, they fancied that by introducing Platon- 
ism into Christianity they would elevate the 
dignity of this religion and make it more popu- 
lar among the nations." 

"They introduced it so well that not only 
was the Platonic philosophy selected as a basis 
for the trinity, but even the legends and my- 
thical stories which had been current among 
the admirers of the great philosopher, as a 
time-honored custom required in the eyes of 
his posterity such an allegorical homage to 
every hero worthy of deification, were revamp- 



ed and used by the Christians. Without going 
so far as India, did they not have a ready 
model for the ' miraculous conception ' in the 
legend about Periktione, Plato's mother? In 
her case it was also maintamed by popular tra- 
dition that she had immaculately conceived 
him, and that the god Apollo was his father. 
Even the annunciation by an angel to Joseph, 
in a dream, the Christians copied from the 
message of Apollo to Aristovv, Periktione's 
husband, that the child to be born from her 
was the offspring of that god. So, too, Romu- 
lus, one of the founders of Rome, was said to 
be the son of Mars by the virgin Rhea Sylvia, 
and he was suckled and nurtured by a wolf and 
was afterwards deified." 

The birth and the wonderful manifestations 
that are related of Christ, was one of the leg- 
ends peculiar to that age. To enshroud it in 
mystery and to make it miraculous was to give 
to him the prestige of a god, when in reality he 
only claimed to be the son of man; and 
when we make due allowance for it we are 
left to wonder how it was ever possible that 
any one should look upon him otherwise than 
as a good man, who was conceived, born, lived 
and died as other men. How he could be 
held as other than a man surpasses my compre- 
hension, and how the intelligent, thinking peo- 
ple of the nineteenth century can think he was 
a god is evidence of credulity, stupidity and 
ignorance. 

It is evident that the Gnostics had a better 
and more correct knowledge of the teachings 
of Christ and his disciples than those who 
claim to be founders of the modern Christian- 
ity, which did not have its rise until in the 
third century; and we should be willing to give 
to them the credit of being as honest as any 
other sect. And if we can believe Nicholas of 
Antioch, a man of honest repute, full of the 
holy ghost and wisdom, we must come to the 
conclusion that Christ was simply a good man 
with lofty thoughts, a great love of humanity, 
and clear perception of right, added to his 
great mediumistic powers. 



CHAPTER X. 



ALL RELIGIONS APPEAR TO HAVE ONE COMMON ORIGIN. THE ORIGIN OF THE 
TRINITY, CROSS, SACRED RIVERS, MADONNA, ARK, DELUGE, FISH STORY. 



The Olympus of the Greeks is but a repro- 
duction of the Hindoo Olympus. The legend 
of Jason and the Golden Fleece is still in the 
mouth of every one in India, and the Iliad of 
Homer is nothing but an echo and enfabled 
souvenir of the Ramayana, a Hindoo poem, in 
which Rama goes at the head of his allies to 
recover his wife, Sita, who had been carried 
off by the King of Ceylon; while the Greeks 
immortalized it in Homer, where Paris carried 
off the fair Helen to Troy. 

^sop and Babrias copied Hindoo fables 
that reached them through Russia, Syria and 
Egypt. Babrias, though a Greek, says at the 
commencement of his second proem that it 
came from the East; and Jacolliot says that no 
one can read the fables of the Hindoo Pilpay, 
or the Brahmin Ramdamyayer, without being 
impressed with the idea that they are the orig- 
inal, and that ^.sop, Babrias and La Fontaine 
are plagiarists, and that the Greek and modern 
fabulists have not taken the trouble to change 
the action of these little dramas. 

One nation copies from another like individ- 
uals, and the succeeding generations retain the 
history and traditions of their ancestors. The 
Greek language and religion has been taken 
from the Hindoo. As the Sanscrit is the mother 
of the Greek language, so the Brahmin religion 
and laws are more or less copied into the 
Greek and Roman religion and laws. Homer 
and Virgil, Sophocles and Euripides, Plautus 
and Terence, copied, altered and modified the 
poetry of the Brahmins; while Socrates, Py- 
thagoras, Plato and Aristotle have drawn their 
inspiration from an older and a more ancient 
philosophy of the Brahmins, Egyptians and 
Persians. Titus, Livius, Sallust, Herodotus 



and Tacitus are our models as historians, and 
they only copied from others still older, dating 
farther back in time. The Justinian code has 
been taken from the Hindoo code of Manu, 
as it bears the ear-marks of legislation, mar- 
riage, filiation, parental authority, tutelage, 
adoption, property, the laws of contract, de- 
posit, loan, sale, partnership, donations and 
testaments. 

Manu, Manes, Minos and Moses were all 
great law-givers and legislators. These four 
names overshadow the entire ancient world. 
They appear at the beginning of the four dif- 
ferent nations, and they play the same role, 
surrounded by the same mysterious halo. All 
of the four were legislators and high-priests, 
and all four founded theocratic and sacerdotal 
societies. That they stand in relation to each 
other as predecessor and successor, however 
distant, seems proven by the similitude of name 
and identity of the institutions they created. 
*' In Sanscrit Manu signifies the man par excel- 
lence, the legislator. Manes, Minos and Moses, 
do they not betray an incontestible unity of 
derivation from the Sanscrit with the slight va- 
riations of different periods, and the different 
languages in which they are written, Egyptian, 
Greek and Hebrew.?" 

Manu, the philosopher and law-giver of In- 
dia, and Manes, the Egyptian legislator, are ex- 
tensively copied. A Cretan visits Egypt to 
study her institutions, which he introduces into 
his own country, and history preserves his 
memory under the name of Minos. Moses is 
the liberator of the servile caste of Hebrews 
from out of bondage in Egypt. These laws 
are all claimed to have been given to them by 
God, out of which they have created caste, 



92 



which in India has crushed the masses down 
in ignorance and superstition, and it made all 
subservient to the Brahmins, who really were 
the governing class. Moses created the order 
of Levi, the priests who claimed that God 
governed them; but they ate the offerings, col- 
lected the tithes and ruled the people. The 
Roman people were divided up into castes — 
priests, senators, patricians and plebeians — 
which was a feebler imitation of the Hindoo 
society. Such has ever been the laws and reli- 
gions, ''Divide, corrumpe ei imperaV divide, 
demoralize and govern. 

The Vedic civilization, under the Hindoo 
priests (the Brahmins), like that of Egypt un- 
der Manes, crushed the masses into a nation of 
slaves, which deprived them of all social and 
political rights, making them mere machines to 
produce, that the privileged classes may live 
in luxury and splendor. The Roman hierarchy 
for ages has kept the masses in ignorance, that 
they might govern them, and at one time their 
power was so great that they even scourged 
kings and forced them to do penance. 

" Excommunication was nothing else than a 
weapon of despotism, picked up in the pagodas 
of Brahma, for the subjugation of people and 
for the triumph of the priests. We have seen 
Savonarola die at the stake for having exposed 
the disorders of Alexander VI; and the pious 
Robert of France, abandoned by his friends 
and his faithful servants, obliged to bend the 
knee under the hand of a religious fanatic. 
Human hecatombs have been burning on the 
piles of faith and the altar reddened with blood. 
Ages have passed away; we are but wakening 
to progress and freethought. But let us expect 
struggles without end until the day shall come 
when we shall have courage to arraign all sa- 
cerdotalism at the bar of liberty." 

The Hindoos, in their primitive times, had 
their virgins attached to the service of the pa- 
godas; some tended the sacred fire, which 
burned day and night before the holy trinity, 
and never was allowed to go out; others, on 
days of procession, danced before the car or 
ark as it was carried through the villages; oth- 
ers, under the delirium produced by an excit- 
ing beverage which is known to the Brahmins, 
uttered oracles in the sanctuaries to fakirs and 
sunniassys (holy mendicants), or to extort from 



the amazed people, abundant offering of fruit 
rice, cattle and money; others sung sacred 
hymns at the sacrifices and festivals and at fun- 
erals, religion requiring each son to make offer- 
ings on the recurring anniversary of his father's 
and mother's deaths, and, as no man could be 
admitted into heaven who had not a son to 
make this offering, so this accounts for the 
great desire of men of the Aryan race to have a 
son to inherit his name. The consecrated vir- 
gins of Egypt danced before the statues of the 
gods; the pythonesses of Delphi, the priestesses 
of Ceres, who delivered oracles, the vestal vir- 
gins of Rome who tended the sacred fire, and 
the sisters of charity, were but heirs to the 
devadassa of India. This tradition of the 
woman, virgin and priestess is so much of an 
oriental inspiration that we see all the nations 
of antiquity reject it as they gradually emanci- 
pated themselves from superstition and mystery. 
If, then, it appears but a legacy from the prim- 
itive cradle, nothing is more natural than to 
trace it to the country whence departed the 
colonizing tribes. 

Jesus is a Sancrit word signifying pure es- 
sence, which is the root, the radical origin 
of a large number of ancient names used 
alike for gods and distinguished men, such as 
Isis, the mother of Horus, the female principle 
in nature, the Earth, the Egyptian goddess; 
Josue, in Hebrew; Joshua the successor of 
Moses; Josias, king of the Hebrews; and Jeseus 
or Jesus, in Hebrew. Jeosuah, which name 
is very common with the Hebrews, was in 
ancient India the tiller, the consecrated epithet 
assigned to all incarnations. "The ol^ciating 
Bohemians in temples and pagodas now accord 
this title of Jeseus, or pure essence, or divine 
emanation, only to Chrisna, who is alone recog- 
nized as the word, the true incarnation by the 
Vishnuites and freethinkers of Brahminism." 
(See "India Bible," by JacoHiot, page io8.) 
Hence comes the word Jesus Christ, from 
Jezeus — Chrisna — of the Sanscrit. 

Chrisna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Mo- 
hammed have all played a human role, and 
God has judged them as he has all the rest of 
mankind, according to the good they have 
accomplished. These great and good men 
started out for a high and noble purpose, but 
their successors, more cunning than their mas- 



93 



ters, having made them gods to smooth their 
own way, present themselves to the people as 
celestial messengers, and thus sanctify their 
ambitious purposes, and rule and govern man. 
On a careful and critical examination they all 
teach the same thing; all tell about the same 
story. It is the same, revamped to suit the 
age and the nation in which they lived. 

The Egyptian god Bacchus was brought up at 
Mysa, and is famous as having been the con- 
queror of India. In Egypt he was called Osi- 
ris; in India Dionysius, and not improbably 
Krishna or Chrisna, which means a savior, as 
he was called Adoneus, which signifies the Lord 
of heaven, or the Lord and giver of light in 
Arabia, and liber throughout the Roman do- 
minions, from whence is derived our term lib- 
eral for everything that is generous, frank and 
amiable. He manifested his glory in the 
wine, therefore he is sometimes called the god 
of wine. It is evident that he was one of the 
sun-gods of some of the ancients, as we find 
expressions like these used in his worship: lo 
Terombe, let us cry unto the Lord; lo or la 
Baccoth, God sees our tears; Jehovah Evan! 
Hevoe! and Eloah, the author of our existence, 
the mighty God; Hu Esh, thou art the fire; 
Elta Esh, thou art the life; and lo Nissi, O 
Lord, direct us; which last is the literal English 
of the Latin motto in the arms of the city of 
London, retained to this day, " Domine dirige 
jios." The Romans, out of all these terms, 
preferred the name of Baccoth, out of which 
they composed Bacchus. The more delicate 
ear of the Greeks was better pleased with the 
words lo Nissi, out of which they formed Dio- 
nysius. 

The three letters I H S, surrounded with 
rays of glory, that are so often seen hanging in 
the Catholic churches and burying grounds, 
which are supposed to stand for Jesus LLomine- 
um Salvator, is none other than the identical 
name of Bacchus, Yes, exhibited in Greek 
letters, V H E, (see Hesychius on the word 
V JL E, i. e.. Ye s, Bacchus, Sol, the Sun). 
And the feast of Bacchus was always celebrated 
by drinking wine and eating bread, from which 
the Christians derived the idea of the sacra- 
ment. One of the odes of Anacreon, trans- 
lated, reads thus: "To arms! But I shall 



drink; boy, bring me the goblet, for I would 
rather lie dead drunk than dead." 

In the ancient Orphic verses, sung in the 
orgies of Bacchus, as celebrated throughout 
Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Arabia, Asia Minor, 
Greece, and ultimately in Italy, it is related 
how that god, who had been born in Arabia, 
was picked up in a box that floated on the 
water, and took his name Mises, in signification 
ot his having been saved from the water, and 
Bimater from his having had two mothers; that 
is, one by nature and another who had adopted 
him. He had a rod with which he performed 
miracles, and which he could change into a 
serpent at pleasure. He passed the Red Sea 
dry-shod at the head of his army; he divided 
the waters of the rivers Orontes and Hydraspus 
by the touch of his rod and passed through 
them dry-shod. By the same mighty rod he 
drew water from the rock, and wherever he 
marched the land flowed with milk and honey. 
And the similarity of these verses shows that 
Moses copied them or that they were taken 
from him. 

The Egyptian tau or cross (T) was in use 
many centuries earlier than the period assigned 
to Abraham, the alleged forefather of the 
Israelites, for Moses directed the children of 
Israel to mark their door-posts and lintels with 
blood, lest the " Lord God " might make a 
mistake and kill them instead of the Egyptians, 
and this mark is a tau, the identical Egyp- 
tian handle-cross, with the half of which tal- 
isman Horus raised the dead, as is shown on a 
sculptured ruin at Philae. And it is asserted 
that the rod of Moses, which he used to per- 
form his miracles before Pharaoh, was no doubt 
a crux ansata, or something like it, as used by 
the Egyptian priests. In the ancient Hebrew 
the sign of the cross was formed thus X, but 
in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics it is the 
the same as a perfect Christian cross *j*. 

According to King and other numismatists 
and archaeologists, the cross was a symbol of 
eternal life. A tau or Egyptian cross was used 
in the mysteries of Bacchus and Eleusinia. It 
was laid on the breast of the initiate, as a sym- 
bol of the "new birth;" that his spiritual birth 
had regenerated and united his astral soul with 
his divine spirit, and that he was ready to as- 
cend in spirit to the blessed abodes of light and 



94 



g ory. The tail is a magic talisman and at the 
same time is a religious emblem. It was 
adopted by the Christians, through the Gnos- 
tics and Kabalists, who used it largely, as their 
numerous gems testify. They took the tau, or 
handle-cross, from the Egyptians, and the 
Latin cross from the Buddhist museums, who 
brought it from India, where it can be found 
to have been in use for two or three centuries 
before Christ. The cross was known to the 
ancient Assyrians, Egyptians, Armenians, Hin- 
doos and Romans, long before the crucifixion 
of Christ. 

The Brah-matma, the chief of the Hindoo 
initiates, had on his head-gear two keys, which 
were symbols of the revealed mystery of life 
and death, and were placed cross-wise; and in 
some of the Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and 
Mongolia, the entrance to a chamber within 
the temple is generally ornamented with a 
cross, formed of two fishes, and so are the 
zodiacs of the ancient Chaldeans and Buddhists 
represented with crossed fishes. And even 
Solomon's temple was built on these founda- 
tions, forming the "triple tau" or three 
crosses, according to one of the traditions of 
ancient Masonry. 

In its mystical sense the Egyptian cross de- 
rives its origin from its former use as an em- 
blem of the realization by the earliest philoso- 
phers of an androgynous dualism in every man- 
ifestation of nature, which proceeds from the 
abstract idea of a likewise androgynous or 
double-sexed (male and female) deity. The 
tau or Egyptian cross, in its mystical sense as 
well as the crux ansata, represents the " tree of 
life" while the Roman cross, on which Christ 
was crucified, was called the " l?re of infamy." 
The crucifix was an instrument of torture, and 
was common among the Romans, for it was 
unknown among Semitic nations until con- 
quered by the Romans, and during the first 
two decades after the crucifixion of Christ, the 
apostles looked upon it with horror. It is cer- 
tainly not the Christian cross that John had in 
mind, when speaking of the signet of the 
" living God," but the mystic tau. 

Many customs found in Christendom may 
be traced back to Egypt. The Egyptian at 
his marriage put a gold ring on his wife's finger 
as a token that he entrusted her with all his 



property, just as in a Church of England mar- 
riage service the bridegroom does the same 
thing, saying, "with all my worldly goods I 
thee endow." The feast of candles at Isis is 
still marked in the Christian calendar as Can- 
dlemas-day. The Catholic priests shave their 
heads as the ancient Egyptian priests did sev- 
eral thousand years ago. The surplice of the 
Episcopal minister, which he wears when read- 
ing the liturgy is the same as that worn by the 
ancient Egyptian priest. The Pope assuming to 
hold the keys, was taken from an Egyptian 
priest at Thebes whose " title was keeper of the 
t\yo doors of heaven," (see Sharpe's "Egyp- 
tian Mythology.") All the forms and ceremo- 
nies of the* Jews bear ear-marks of having been 
borrowed by Moses from the Egyptians; " the 
ark," "the holy of holies," the scapegoat, the 
cherubim, w^ere derived from the sphynx. Also 
the rite of circumcision was practiced in Egypt 
as early as the fourth dynasty, says Wilkinson, 
long before the time of Abraham. 

The Trinity. 

In the Book of Hermes, the origin of which 
is lost in the colonization of Egypt, there is a 
reference made to the Hindoo Chrisna, accord- 
ing to the Brahmins, and it enunciates in dis- 
tinct terms the trinitarian dogma. "The light 
is me," says Pimander; ''the Divine thought; I 
am the nous, or intelligence, and I am thy God 
and am far older than the human principle, 
which escapes from the shadow. I am the 
germ of thought; the resplendent word; the 
Son of God. Think that what thou seest and 
heare"t is the verbwn of the master; it is the 
thought which is God, the Father. The celes- 
tial ocean, the ether, which flows from east to 
west, is the breath of the Father, the life-giving 
principle, the Holy Ghost, for they are not 
separated and their union is life." 

The trinity of the Egyptians was a triangle. 
Plutarch says that the Egyptians worshiped 
Osiris, Isis and Horus, under the form of a 
triangle. He adds that they considered every- 
thing perfect to have three parts, and therefore 
their good god made himself three-fold, while 
their god of evil remained single. 

The ancient Hindoos had a Christ, a virgin 
" mother of God," queen of heaven, though 
Isis is also by right the queen of heaven, and 



95 



is generally represented carrying in her hand 
the crux ansata (y ) or cross. In one of the 
ancient tombs of the Pharaohs there is a figure 
of the birth of the sun in the form of a little 
child issuing from the bosom of its divine 
mother, the resplendent golden rays darting 
forth from its head, which was intended to rep- 
resent the rays of the sun-god. The mono- 
gram or symbol of the god Saturn was the sign 
of the cross with a ram's horn in indication of 
the lamb of God. Jupiter also bore a cross 
with a horn, and Venus a cross with a circle. 

Among the Semitic nations we can trace the 
trinity to the prehistoric days of the fabled Se- 
sostris, who is identified by more than one critic 
with Nimrod the "mighty hunter." "Tell me, 
O, thou strong in fire, who, before me, could 
subjugate all things ? and who shall after me } " 
And the oracle saith thus: "First, God, then 
the Word and then the Spirit." (See " x\p 
Malal," liber i, cap. iv.) 

Then there was the trinity of God, earth, at- 
mosphere; earth, fire and water; and this three- 
fold function of the Divinity evidently gave rise 
to the Hebrew Jehovah, or Ye-ho-vah, repre- 
senting the Future, the Present and the Past, 
and from this idea of the three united in one 
has given us the trinity — Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost — which was taken from the three-fold 
deity of the Hindoos, which antedates that of 
the Jews, who understood the powers of the 
prism and the breaking of the rays of light into 
red, yellow and blue, by the means of w^hich 
they were able to calculate and make astronom- 
ical calculations, and with the aid of the trian- 
gle, with its three sides in one, they described 
a part of a circle which represents the infinite 
and is an important figure in geometry, next 
in importance to the circle that encloses a 
globe, which is the most perfect form ot all 
bodies and figures, and represents the whole. 

There is no doubt of the great antiquity of 
the trinity in India, as it is written in books, in 
a language that has ceased to be spoken for 
thousands of years, long before the birth of 
Christ, while in their temples and ruins, in the 
old cavern of Elephanta, hewn into the solid 
rock at a time so remote that it is not known 
in history. Here the traveler beholds with awe 
and astonishment, in the most conspicuous part 
of the most ancient and venerable temple of the 



world, a bust expanding in breadth nearly twen- 
ty feet, and no less than eighteen feet in alti- 
tude — a bust composed of three heads united 
to one body, adorned with the oldest symbols 
of Indian theology, and thus expressly fabricat- 
ed to indicate the one God in his triune char- 
acter of the Creator, Preserver and Regener- 
tor of mankind. 

The Zoroastrians or sun-worshipers had a 
trinity in the sun, light, fire, flame, three mani- 
festations of the sun, which gave rise to the all- 
seeing eye, which is synonymous to that of 
sun-worship, which Solomon introduced into 
the order of Freemasonry, which he took from 
the Egyptians and Assyrians. 

The Persian triplicate deity was also composed 
of three persons — Ormuzd, Mithra and Ahri- 
man. 

The Hindoos had three in their trinity, Brah- 
ma, Vishnu and Siva, corresponding to power, 
wisdom and justice, or creator, preserver and 
destroyer of life, which in their turn answered to 
spirit, force and matter, and the past, present 
and future. 

The Chinese idol Sampao, consisted of three, 
equal in all respects. 

The ancient Egyptians had their triplet, 
Emepht, Eicton and Phta; and this triple god, 
seated on the lotus, one of the images, can 
now be seen in the St. Petersburg museum. 

The Peruvians supposed their god, Tanga- 
Tanga, to be one in three and three in one. 

The ancient Mexicans had also a trinity. — 
Yzona (Father), Bacah (Son) and Echvah (Ho- 
ly Ghost) and they said they received the doc- 
trine from their ancestors. (See Lord Kings- 
borough's " Anct. Mex.," page 165.) And 
these ancient Mexicans or Aztecs had a Christ 
and a virgin mother; and one of the priests 
that were with Cortez said that the devil had 
evidently informed them of these facts, for who 
else could have given them that information. 

All these facts carry us back long anterior to 
the time mentioned in the old Bible, which was 
taken by the Egyptians from India, and by the 
Israelites carried from Egypt to Palestine. 
Moses and Aaron learned it in the temples from 
the hierophants or priests, who were learned 
in all the religious matters, and who guarded 
their secrets with most sacred vigilance. For 
centuries the Egyptians were a secluded people 



96 



like the Chinese, says Herodotus, and the 
Greeks by stealth drew all their information 
from them; that the Egyptians were, at an early 
date, undoubtedly a colony from India, as their 
religion and civilization bear its ear-marks. 

Modern Christanity is nothing but the pure 
and spiritual doctrines taught by Christ, defiled 
by paganism and superstition which have been 
engrafted on it. All the forms and ceremo- 
nies that were condemned by Christ had their 
origin in the old pagan worship of idolatry. 
The burning of the fire on the altar and the 
burning of the incense had their origin in the 
heathen temples thousands of years before the 
birth of Christ. The nuns of the Roman 
Catholic church are taken from the vestal 
virgins, and the monks took the place of the 
Roman augurs. The forms of churches and 
cathredals were taken from those of the ancient 
temples of the heathen gods. These temples 
were first constructed for tombs, hence the idea 
is still prevalent of burying the dead in the 
churchyard or under the church floor or altar. 

The Papal tiara, which is the crown worn by 
the Popes of Rome, the so-called successors of 
St. Peter, is the same as that worn by the gods 
of ancient Assyria; so also are the tonsure and 
surplice of the priests copied from the same 
source, and the tinkling bells were used before 
the altar of Jupiter Amnion, around the hem of 
the robe of the high-priest of the Mosaic Jews; 
and bells were also suspended in the pagodas, 
and on the sacred table of the Buddhist. The 
beads and rosaries were used by the Buddhist 
monks for over five hundred years before the 
birth of Christ, and the cross was in use for 
many centuries before it was adopted as a 
symbol of the Christian church, as a secret 
sign of recognition among neophytes and adepts 
of occultism. It is a Kabalistic sign, and 
represents the oppositions and quaternary equi- 
librium of the elements. It is also found in 
the caves and ruins of the prehistoric man of 
Europe, Asia and America. 

The cross, the miter, the dalmatica, the cope 
which the grand lamas (priests) wear while 
performing certain ceremonies out of the 
temple, the service with double choirs, the 
psalmody, the exorcism, the censer suspended 
from five chains and which can be opened or 
closed at pleasure, the benedictions given by 



the lamas by extending the right hand over the 
heads of the faithful; the chaplet, ecclesiastical 
celibacy, religions retirement, the worship of 
saints, the fasts, the processions, the litanies, 
the holy water, are all striking analogies that 
are difficult to explain. 

Father Bury, a Portuguese missionary, when 
he beheld the Chinese bonzes (priests) using 
rosaries, praying in an unknown tongue and 
kneeling before images, exclaimed in astonish- 
ment, "There is not a piece of dress, not a 
sacerdotal function, not a ceremony of the 
courts of Rome which the devil has not copied 
in this country." (See Kesson, " The Cross 
and Dragon," also Father Hue's " Recollections 
of a Journey in Tartary, Thibet and China.") 

The question at once rises, which was the 
original? Did the Christian Catholics copy the 
Buddhists, or did the Buddhists borrow from 
them? The rock-cut monasteries and temples 
in India, the records of China and Ceylon, all 
agree in placing it in favor of the Buddhists, 
who existed not less than five hundred years 
before Christ. Says Mr. Plardwicke, "It may 
have been possible to have two spontaneous 
growths, but more probable that the one is 
copied from the other." 

The Hindoos had their sacred river in the 
Ganges, where they bathed and purified them- 
selves; so the Jews had theirs in the river 
Jordan. The Jews plagiarized their religion 
from the Hindoos, as the Greeks did from the 
Egyptians, and the Romans from the Greeks, 
so that upon a careful scrutiny of all the ancient 
religions, they bear the ear-marks of one origin in 
India. And the similiarity of these religions 
is so great that the modern Hindoos found 
fault with the British government for allowing a 
temple of Vishnu to fall to ruins, as they claim 
that Chrisna and Christ are one and the same 
person. 

Religions, like thoughts, have one common 
origin in the brain, and in both cases the ideas 
are more borrowed than original. Symbolism 
is often used to convey to the untutored mind 
the idea of some great truth; but frequently the 
mind cannot yet entirely comprehend it, so 
that the common mind falls down and worships 
the image instead of the true being which it is 
intended to represent. As the mind becomes 
more enlightened it sees and comprehends 



97 



these truths and then discards the idols and 
images and looks up to and feels the great 
truths in his own mind. 

The Madonna is only the reproduction of 
Isis under a new name, standing on the crescent 
of the moon, holding her infant Horus in her 
arms, which represented to the ancient Egyp- 
tians that the moon followed the sun, and that 
Iris, the Earth, with her child Horus, \vho was 
the son of Osiris, the sun-god, the ruler of the 
day, and the son followed the father; that night 
preceded the day. Juvenal says, "That the 
painters of Egypt made their living by paint- 
ing the goddess Isis and her son Horus, and 
exporting them to Italy, which was a very pop- 
ular picture at the time of the introduction of 
Christianity into Rome, and was by the priests 
substituted for and called the Madonna, the 
virgin Mary and child." (See "Ten Great 
Religions," page 254 ) 

In the explorations of the ancient ruins at 
Philie, Upper Egypt, which antedated the birth 
of Christ, there has been found what was sup- 
posed to be the holy family, when in reality it 
proved to be Osiris, Isis and Horus, instead of 
being Joseph, Mary and Jesus; and what is 
still more remarkable, that in the old temples 
of India they are represented as black, while 
many of the ancient statues of Buddha are 
represented with Crisp, curly hair, with flat 
noses and thick lips; nor can it be reasonably 
doubted that a negro race once held pre-emi- 
nence in India. Higgins writes, "There is 
scarcely an old church in Italy where some 
remams of the worship of the black virgin and 
child are not to be met with," This is strong 
evidence that they were taken either from India 
or Egypt. 

The Holy Communion or Lord's Supper. 

The Holy Communion or Lord's Supper had 
its commencement in the Bacchic mysteries, 
where a communion cup was handed around 
after supper, out of which all took a sip of 
wine. It was called the cup of Agathodaemon. 
The Orphite rites were similar, where the com- 
munion consisted of bread and wine in the 
worship of nearly every deity of any import- 
ance. Epiphanius tells a strange story about a 
Gnostic sect that celebrated their eucharist, 
having three vases of the finest and clearest 



crystal which w^ere filled with white wine, and 
while the ceremony was going on, in the pres- 
ence of all, it changed to a blood-red, then a 
purple, and finally into an azure-blue color. 
Then the magus handed the vases of wine to a 
woman of the congregation, asking her to bless 
it. Then it was poured into a larger vase, and 
after much prayer and devotion it began to boil 
and rise in the vase until it ran over. 

During the mysteries wane which represented 
Bacchus was used, he being of Indian origin. 
Cicero mentioiled him as a son of Thyone and 
Nisus, and consequently Bacchus crowned with 
ivy or kissos, is Chrisna, one of whose names 
was Kissen, or Christ. The ancient Greeks 
and Romans in the mysteries used wine to rep- 
resent Bacchus and bread for Ceres. 

The Deluge. 

The ancient Chaldeans and Hindoos had 
their Adam and Eve, their Noah and the flood, 
while the Bible would lead us to believe that 
the Gnrden of Eden was located on the 
Euphrates, and that the ark rested on Mount 
Ararat, while the Hindoo tradition places it on 
the Himalayas. It cannot be denied that man 
must have had a beginning, and that there has 
been a deluge in Central Asia there can be no 
doubt, the tradition of which can be traced to 
every country, and which, according to Bunsen, 
happened about the year 10,000 B. C, and had 
nought to do with the mythical Noah orNuah. 
A partial cataclysm occurs at the close of every 
geological "age" of the world, which does not 
destroy it, but only changes its general appear- 
ance. While some portions are submerged, 
others are elevated. And the fossils found 
lead us to believe that new races of men, new 
animals and a new flora evolve from the disso- 
lution of the preceding ones. 

The Hindoo tradition says that Vaivasvata, 
who in the Bible becomes Noah, was saved by 
a little fish, which turned out to be an avater 
of Vishnu. The fish warns that just man that 
the globe is about to be submerged, that all the 
inhabitants must perish, and orders him to con- 
struct a vessel in which he shall embark with 
all his family. When the ship is finished he 
goes on board with his entire family, taking 
with him the seeds of all plants and a pair of 
every kind of animal; then the heavens open 



98 



and the rains fall and the entire surface of the 
earth is covered with water. A gigantic fish, 
armed with a horn, places itself at the head of 
the ark, and the holy man, following its orders, 
attaches a cable to its horn, and the fish guides 
the ship for forty days and nights through the 
raging elements, and finally landed the ark on 
the summit of the Himalayas; yet among all 
the ancient Egyptian writings there is no men- 
tion of a deluge, therefore it is evident that it 
was confined to Central Asia, if it ever oc- 
curred at all; and as the writings of the ancient 
Hindoos are much older than those Of" the 
Bible, it most probably was taken from the 
Hindoo by the Chaldeans, and from them by 
the Jews. But it is, in all probability, an alle- 
gory representing the incarnation of the spirit 
in the flesh. 

Noah is the Chaldean for Nuah, who is the 
king of the humid principle, the spirit moving 
or floating on the waters in his ark, the latter 
being the emblem of the argha or moon, the 
feminine principle. Noah is the '* spirit" fall- 
ing into matter, so we find him as soon as he 
descended to the earth, planting a vineyard, 
drinking wine and getting drunk on it; /. e., the 
pure spirit becoming intoxicated as soon as it is 
finally imprisoned in matter. 

The dagon or fish-man, found engraven in 
stone and metal of the ancients, had its origin 
in the idea that man sprang from fish. The 
Japanese have a singular idol formed out of the 
body and tail of a fish, fastened upon the head 
and shoulders of a monkey, which gave rise to 
the idea of mermaids. "The Hindoo god, 
Vishnu, assumed the form of a fish with a hu- 
man head, in order to reclaim the Vedas, lost 
during the deluge. Having enabled Visvami- 
tra to escape with all his tribe in the ark, but, 
pitying weak and erring humanity, he remained 
with them for some time, taught them how to 
build houses and cultivate the land. He re- 
mained on land in the day-time and went to 
the ocean to pass his nights. '*One day he 
plunged into the water and returned no more, 
for the earth had covered itself with vegetation, 
fruit and cattle." 

This fable of Vishnu disguised as a fish gives 
weight to the sacred books of the Hindoos, es- 
pecially in view of the fact that the Vedas and 
Manu reckon more than twenty-five thousand 



years of existence, as proved by the most serious 
as well as the most authentic documents. Few 
people, says the learned Halhed, have their 
annals more authentic or more serious than the 
Hindoos. 

The big story of Jonah and the whale had its 
origin in the same idea, that man sprang from 
out of the fish. Vishnu is evidently the Adam 
Kadmon of the Kabalists, for Adam is the Lo- 
gos, or the first anointed, as Adam second is 
the King Messiah; Adam Kadmon was an ema- 
nation of Jehovah; and Adam the first man was 
the first materialized spirit of man clothed in 
flesh; having lost the power to dematerialize 
was forced to live in the flesh on the earth. Be- 
ing androgynous, as all angels are, and falling into 
deep sleep or trance, the female principle was 
separated by drawing her life principle out of 
his side and materialized in the material form 
of a woman, called Eve in the Bible. 

Lakmy, or Lakshmi, the passive or female 
counterpart of Vishnu, the creator and pre- 
server, is also called Ada Maya. She is the 
"mother of the world," Damatri, the Venus 
aphrodite of the Greeks; she is also called Isis 
and Eve. While Venus was born from the sea- 
foam, Lakmy springs out from the water at the 
churning of the sea. When born she is so 
beautiful that all the gods fall in love with her. 
The Jews, borrowing their types wherever they 
could get them, made their first woman after 
the pattern of Lakmy. It is a curious coinci- 
dence that Viracocha, the Supreme Being of 
ancient Peru, means, when literally translated, 
" foam of the sea." 

In the oldest Hindoo book, Manu, there is 
a passage that says, "That this world issued 
out of darkness; the subtle elementary princi- 
ples produced the vegetable seed, which ani- 
mated first the plants. From plants, life passed 
into fantastical bodies, which were born in the 
waters; then, through a series of forms of 
plants, worms, insects, fish, serpents, tortoises, 
cattle and wild animals, until finally man was 
evolved. This is in accordauce with the laws 
of evolution, as laid down by Darwin and 
Huxley. 

"The object of all religions," says the Per- 
sian Hafiz, "is alike." All men seek their 
beloved, and is not all the world love's dwell- 
ing ? Why talk of a mosque or a church } 



99 



Hindoo teachers say, " The creed of the lover 
differs from other creeds. God is the creed of 
those who love Him, and to do good is best 
with the folio w^ers of every faith." He alone 
is a true Hindoo whose heart is just, and he 
only is a good Mussulman whose life is pure. 
"Remember Him who has seen numberless 
Mahomets, Vishnus, Vivas, come and go, and 
who is not found by one who forgets or turns 



from the poor." "The common standpoint 
of the three religions," says the Chinese, "is 
that they in<;ist on the banishment of evil de- 
sire and do good." 

So we see in all religious beliefs a commin- 
gling of their forms and ceremonies, which 
goes far to establish the fact that all religions 
must have had their origin from a belief in a 
state of future existence. 




CHAPTER XL 



THE EIGHT GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. BRAHMINISM, BUDDHISM, ZORO- 

ASTERISM, MOSAICISM, CHRISTIANITY. MOHAMMEDANISM, 

LAOTESEISM AND MODERM SPIRITUALISM. 



Comparative Theology, like comparative 
anatomy, comparative geography, and compar- 
ative philology, is yet in its infancy. It is a 
science which consists in the study of the facts 
of human history and their relation to each 
other. It does not dogmatize; it observes, 
and it deals only with phenomena and facts 
that relate to the spiritual nature in man. 

By comparing the various religions of man- 
kind we see wherein they differ, wherein they 
agree, and what appears true and what false. 
It shows both sides of religion and that as it 
has advanced with civilization, it has lost much 
of its severity, and that a higher religion and 
better morals must find root in the decaying 
soils of past religious beliefs and traditions of 
God, duty and immortality of the soul. 

The duty of comparative theology is to do 
justice to all the religions of mankind, to strike 
out all debasing superstitions and arrive at the 
truth. All religions teach the immortality of 
the soul, future rewards and punishments, a 
hell and a heaven. The basis of all religions 
is spiritism; that the spirit of the departed lives 
and has its existence in the atmosphere sur- 
rounding us. 

The ablest writers on comparative theology 
are Max Muller, Bunsen, Burnouf, DoUinger, 
Hardwicke, St. Hilaire, Duncker, Baur, Renan, 
Cox, and J. F. Clarke, author of the "Ten 
Great Religions." These writers show great 
learning and have stripped mythology and the- 
ology of its outward forms and sacred robes, 
showing, beyond a doubt, that religions, like 
civilizations, are the outgrowth of older reli- 
gions and civilizations; that it comes from 
within; that it is a part of man's nature to be 
religious, so that he has often been called a 



religious animal, as no other animal offers up 
prayers or supplications to the Great Spirit of 
the unseen universe. 

All the principal religions, like the human 
race, appear to have had their origin in Asia, 
and have spread thence over the whole civilized 
world. Each race has adopted a certain relig- 
ion that has had much to do in shaping its civ- 
ilization. Research has shown that India is the 
mother of civilization and religion; that, far 
back in the night of time, the songs of the Reg- 
Veda were written in Sanscrit. It is the oldest 
written language, and is the mother of the 
Greek language, which, from its perfection, was 
claimed by the Greeks as the language of the 
gods — while the modern Christians, adhering to 
the idea of Moses and creation, make the He- 
brew the language of God as given to Adam 
and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 

There appears to be a material connection 
between language and religion. As language is 
the medium through w^hich the soul communi- 
cates its thoughts and feelings to its fellow- 
man, so, in the growth and development of 
language, we are enabled to trace the early 
ideas and view^s of primitive man far back in 
the past, long before there was ever a written 
language, for words were used long before they 
were reduced to writing, so that the philologist 
is enabled to trace back the Aryan religion to a 
period long before it separated into different 
races. So that by the use of words, generic in 
their nature, that are to be found in common 
use, by different races speaking different lan- 
guages — the same or similar words are used to 
express the same thing or ideas — it is evident 
that far back in the past these different races 
spoke a common language; and when the gen- 



101 



eric words relate to God or religion, then it is 
evidence that their religion was about the same. 
So in this way the human family has been 
traced back to the different origins and centers 
from which it diverged. Each of these diverg- 
ing races carries with them these generic words, 
with their meaning about the same, though 
they may and often do change the nomencla- 
ture of these generic words, as the dialects and 
provincialisms tend to give the phonetic sounds 
to them. 

" If," says Max Muller, " we would learn to 
be charitable in the interpretation of the lan- 
guage of other religions, we shall more easily 
learn to be charitable in the interpretation of 
our own language. We shall no longer try to 
force a literal interpretation on words and sen- 
tences in our sacred books, which, if interpre- 
ted literally, must lose their original purport 
and their spiritual truth." If we can make 
allowance for mouth and lips and breath, we 
can surely make the same allowance for words 
and their utterance, for all languages have their 
dialects. There is a high and there is a low 
dialect; there is a broad and there is a narrow 
dialect; there are dialects for men and for wo- 
men and for children; for clergy and for laity; 
for the noisy streets and for the still and quiet 
life of the closets of students; and as the child 
advances to manhood it has to learn its lan- 
guage and its religion. 

The religion of the nursery, with baby talk, 
ghost and witch stories, implants a supersti- 
tious religion which requires a severe mental 
struggle to outgrow, and some are so effemin- 
ate that they never are able to throw it off. 
Therefore the mass of mankind speak the lan- 
guage of their fathers and adopt their ideas of 
politics and business, and cling to the religion 
of their mother; therefore the masses move 
slowly in politics and still slower in religion. 
The early expressions of religion were no doubt 
frequently childish and mythical, which has 
tended to confuse the scholar in arriving at 
what was the real religious sentiment. It is 
impossible to express abstract ideas except by 
metaphor, and it is not too much to say that 
the whole dictionary of ancient religion is 
made up of metaphors, and consequently there 
is a constant struggle in the mind to free the 
material from the spiritual. 



By the aid of comparative philology man 
has been enabled to trace the leading races and 
religions back to three centers in Asia — the 
Aryan, the Semitic and the Turanic. The 
Aryan includes the Hindoo and the European 
races, for that reason they are called Indo- 
European, and some call them the Indo-Ger- 
manic. I am inclined to believe Indo-Euro- 
pean is, perhaps, the best term, as it leads to 
less confusion. This race at a very early date 
broke up into four parts. The Indians or Hin- 
doos went southeast into India by the way of 
the Punjaub, while the Irsenians settled in Per- 
sia, and reach through Hindoo Koos mountains 
east to the country now known as Afghanistan, 
and to the Himalaya mountains, and west into 
the Caucasus mountains, which was at one 
time supposed to be the home of the white 
race, who are often called the Caucausian race. 
The Greeks and Romans entered Europe by 
crossing the Plellespont. ^neas fled from 
Troy and settled in Italy. The Celts, Teutons 
and Sclavs entered Europe from the north side 
of the Black Sea. 

The Hindoo branch of the Aryan family still 
adheres to its old religion, and in the belief of 
spirits and of the spirituality of God in the 
shape of a Divine mind or Sensorium, from 
whence all divine intelligence is drawn. And 
their religion is that of Brahminism and Bud- 
dhism. Their sacred books or bible is the 
Vedas, written in the Sanscrit, and from this 
language the philologist is enabled to trace the 
origin of the Greek, Latin, and the German 
and Anglo-Saxon and English languages. 

It is evident that the Semitic religion of 
Abraham dates far back into the past, long 
before the flood, which was the submerging of 
some portion of the Eastern hemisphere, per- 
haps a submerged continent which is now called 
Lemuria. It lies to the south of India, and is 
where some writers locate the origin of man on 
earth. 

The Bible says, "And Joshua said unto 
all the people; thus saith the Lord God of 
Israel: your fathers dwelt on the other side of 
the flood in old times, even Terah, the father 
of Abraham and the father of Nachor, and 
they serv'ed other gods. * * * Now, there- 
fore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity 
and truth; and put away the gods which your 



102 



fathers served on the other side of the flood 
and in Egypt and serve ye the Lord/' 

And it is evident from this declaration of 
Joshua that before the flood they had other 
gods, and it might have been that they belong- 
ed to the same stock or root as the Aryan 
races, who had many gods. The Brahmins 
claim that they got their knowledge of God 
from the Pitri, who lived before the flood. 
They were spirits who returned to earth to teach 
man after the flood. Here we get a glimpse of 
the remoteness of man and his religion, and 
here was the beginning of the Hebrew race and 
religion; the idea of a Jehovah and a jealous, 
revengeful God, a monotheisthic God without 
wife or children, to whom Christianity has given 
a son equal to the father, and Mohammedan- 
ism has given Him a prophet who has charge 
of His earthly affairs and of the admission into 
Paradise. 

The Semitic nations have, on the contrary, a 
different word for their deity. El, which means 
strong, and throughout all the Semitic races it 
is a term applied to their deity. In the He- 
brew we have the word Beth-El, the house of 
God; ha-El, the strong one. 

" El was the name for God in Babylon, and 
was worshiped at Byblis by the Phoenicians, 
and he was called the sun of heaven and earth. 
His father was the son of Eliuui, the most high 
God, who had been killed by wild animals. 
The son of Elium, who succeeded him, was 
dethroned and at last slain by his own son El, 
whom Philo identified with the Greek Kronos, 
and is represented as the presiding deity of the 
planet Saturn, with the name of El. Philo 
connected the name with Elohim, the plural of 
Eloah. In the battle between El and his 
father, the aliens of El, he says, ' were called 
Elohim, as those who were with Kronos were 
called Kronivi.' " 

Eloah is used in the Bible synonymous with 
El. It means gods in general or false gods, 
while in Arabic ilah without the article means 
a god in general, with the article Al-ilah or 
Allah becomes the name of the God of Moham- 
med. Hence we find through all the Semitic 
races different terms for God, which have been 
changed but little from El, the \^ jylonian 
name for God. 

The majority of the writers o )hilology 



claim that the Semitic language had its origin 
in a different root. That it sprang from some 
wild, ape-like man family or group, far differ- 
ent from that of the Aryan. 

Elyon. which in Greek means the highest, is 
used in the old Testament as a predicate of 
God. It occurs also by itself as a name of 
Jehovah. Melchizedek is called emphatically 
the priest of El-Elyon — the priest of the Most 
High God. It is evidently derived from a 
Phoenician word, Elium, the High God, the 
Father of Heaven, who was the father of El. 
The word Jehovah or Jahveh is supposed to be 
derived from a Chaldean word, Ido, God. It 
is claimed by Sir Henry Rawlinson to be found 
on inscriptions in the ruins of Babylon. Yet it 
may be of Hebrew origin — after their separation 
from the main branch of the Semitic race — and, 
therefore was a local word, which the Jews used 
in the sense of the one true God. Abraham 
worshiped God as Jehovah, and philologists 
differ as to whether it is of Hebrew origin. 

The Semitic nations, Assyrians, Babylonians, 
Phoenicians, Carthagenians, the Moabites, Phil- 
istians, and, sometimes, the Jews, called their 
great or supreme (iod, Bel, or Baal. Before 
the flood, he was called Bel. Though origin- 
ally 07ie Baal, he became divided into many 
divine personalities through the influence of 
local worship. So we hear of a Baal-tsur, 
Baal-tsidon, Baal-tare, originally the Baal of 
Tyre, of Sidon, and of Tarsus. At Shechem> 
Baal was worshiped as Baal barith, supposed to 
mean the God of treaties. At Ekron, the Phil- 
istians worshiped him as Baal-zebub, the lord 
of flies (hence comes our Beelzebub); while the 
Moabites, and the Jews, too, knew him also 
by the name of Baal-peor. On the Phoenician 
coins, Baal is called Baai-shamayim, the Baal 
of heaven, which is the. Beelsamen of Philo, 
identified by him with the sun, and makes him 
a sun-god. 

When the ancient Babylonians spoke of 
Belus, the Supreme God, cutting off his own 
head, that the blood flowing from it might be 
mixed with the dust out of which men were 
for.med, sounds horrible and absurd; but, by 
this myth, they only convey the idea that there 
is in man an element of divine life — that we 
are also his offspring. The ancient Egyptians 
convey about the same idea in the seventeenth 



103 



chapter of thier "ritual," that the sun mutilated 
himself, and that from the stream of his blood 
he created beings. And Moses conveys the 
same idea in Genesis when he sa3^s that, " God 
formed man from the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." 

The Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, 
Hebrews, Syrian tribes, Arabs and Carthage- 
nians all belonged to the Semitic race. It is 
the only race that was ever a rival of the Aryan 
race. The Semitic race has been great on land 
and sea. From the valley of the Euphrates 
and that of the Tigris, its sons carried their 
peculiar civilization west to the Mediterranean 
sea, whose commerce at one time was under 
the control of the Phcenicians, whose ships ex- 
plored the coast and made settlements at Car- 
thage and Cadiz, and sailed as far north as 
Great Britain, and circumnavigated Africa two 
thousand years before Vasco de Gama. 

The languages of the Semitic nations is very 
closely related, being almost the dialects of a 
single tongue, the difference between them be- 
ing hardly greater than between the different 
dialects of the German race. 

The Phoenician language is almost identical 
with that of the Hebrew, and the Phoenicians 
had the Jewish love of commerce, trade, and 
making money. By some historians they have 
been called the ancient Jews of the Mediterra- 
nean. This race has given to man the alpha- 
bet, the Bible, the Koran, commerce, and the 
greatest military genius of the past, Hannibal. 

The peculiarities of these races have been in 
the structure of their language and the forms of 
their religion, which consisted mainly of mono- 
theism — a belief in the existence of one per- 
sonal God only — while the belief of the Aryan 
races was that of polytheism — a belief in the 
plurality of the gods or invisible beings supe- 
rior to man, and having an agency in the gov- 
ernment of the world, and who could assist 
mortals, a kind of ancestral worship of the 
spirits of ancestors, friends, heroes and states- 
men, who became gods. 

"The highest God [of the Aryans] received 
the same name in the ancient mythology of India, 
Greece, Italy and Germany, and they retained 
that name, whether worshiped on the Hima- 
layan mountains (Olympus) or among the oaks 
of Dodona, on the Capitol, or in the forest of 



Germany. * * * ^y^ j^^^^g i^ ^}^g Vedas 
the invocation Dya?is-pitar, the Greek, Yev- 
iiarep, the Latin Jupiter, which means in all 
three languages what it meant before these 
languages were torn asunder — it means Heav- 
enly Father. It did not mean idolatry, or 
nature-worship, but the Great Spirit that dwelt 
in the sky, the source of all life and light, from 
which all intelligence and good has emana- 
ted." (See Max Muller's " Science of Reli- 
gion.") 

The ancient Greek and Roman religion is 
evidently of Aryan origin, as it is illustrated in 
Homer, ITesiod and Virgil. They believed in 
tutelary and ancestral spirits, though their 
religion had become much mixed with that of 
Egypt and with the Semitic religion, which 
they introduced into their mythology. 

There have been two streams of religion 
flowing through two channels; one the Aryan 
and the other the Semitic; one from the plains 
of the Euphrates to the Jordan and to the 
Mediterranean, while the other has flown from 
the Indus to the Thames, through the middle 
of Europe, among the blonde race, while the 
former has been engrafted in the dark races in 
the south of Europe, in a modified form of the 
monotheistic Semitic religion — the Roman 
Catholic religion. 

While, in a still more modified form, it has 
spread over the whole of middle and northern 
Europe, where it is known as Protestantism, 
w^hich is more liberal in its views and loses 
much of its monotheistic nature and becomes 
more spiritual. The anthropomorphic idea of 
an individual God meets with but little favor 
from the Indo-Germanic races, who are fast 
falling into the spiritual belief, which was the 
original religion of the Aryan race, before it 
became engrafted on Christianity, which was a 
departure from the monotheistic belief of the 
Semitic races. As the Christian religion is 
more Brahminical than Mosaical, it is a rein- 
carnation of Chrisna or Buddha, and it is more 
humane and not tyrannical, like that of the 
Mosaic. 

The Hindoo branch of the Aryan family, 
like the Hebrew branch of the Semitic family, 
has produced two religious books, or two reli- 
gions, one being the outgrowth of the other. 
The Hindoos have given rise to Brahminism, 



104 



and Buddhism is its outgrowth. The He- 
brew religion had its origin in Mosaicism, and 
its outgrowth is Christianity. The Irae- 
nians — the ancient Persians — a branch of the 
Aryan race, had another religion known as Zo- 
roasterism, which is found in the Zend-Avesta, 
and draws much from the old Vedas, the sacred 
books of the Brahmins. There is still another 
branch of the Semitic race, the Arabs, which 
has given to the world another religion known 
as Mohammedanism, the outgrowth of the 
old Bible, or rather the old Testament, which 
has respect for Christ as a prophet, but differs 
with Christianity as to his divine origin. 

The old monotheisthic doctrine of Moses, 
taught in the old Testament, that there is but 
one God and Moses is his prophet, is now em- 
braced by the entire Semitic race, so that prac- 
tically this race has again returned to its orig- 
inal belief in one God — a man-like God, as 
Moses says, "God created man in his own 
image," and it can therefore be claimed that 
he is in the shape and form of a ;;m;z, and this 
man-like God punishes as well as offers rewards 
and grants forgiveness of sin through the influ- 
ence of the Prophet. So thousands flock to 
Mecca, as Christians do to Jerusalem, to do 
homage to these sacred places. 

Christianity was an improvement on Mosaic- 
ism; so was Buddhism an improvement on 
Brahminism; and both tended to purify and 
better the condition of the religious sentiment 
of the people. Christ, though a Jew, was 
rejected by the Jews, but his religious senti- 
ment found lodgment among the gentiles — the 
Indo-European races — but never was very pala- 
table to the Semitic races, which clung to the 
monotheistic idea of a man-like God. The 
doctrine of the trinity was something they 
could never comprehend, and so they readily 
fell into the Mohammedan religion, as enun- 
ciated by its great prophet, who said, "There 
is but one God and Mohammed is his prophet," 
while the Jews claim there is but one God and 
Moses is his prophet. 

The Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians and 
Carthagenians had a similar religion. They 
believed in a Supreme God, called by different 
names — Ira, Bel, Set, Hadad, Moloch, Che- 
mosh, Jaoh El, Adon and Asshur. All be- 
lieved in subordinate and secondary beings 



emanating from this Supreme Being, who were 
his manifestations to the world, and who were 
the rulers of the planets. Like other panthe- 
istic religions, the custom prevailed among the 
Semitic nations of promoting first one and then 
the other deity to be the supreme object of 
worship. Among the Assyrians, as among the 
Egyptians, the gods were often arranged in 
triads, as that of Anu, Bel and Ao. Anu or 
Aannes wore the head of a fish, Bel wore the 
horns of a bull, and Ao was represented by a 
serpent. Moses is frequently represented as 
having a ram's horn on the side of his head. 

Brahminism, like the Church of Rome, es- 
tablished a system of sacramental salvation in 
the hands of a sacred order. Buddhism, like Pro- 
testantism, revolted and established a doctrine 
of individual salvation, based on personal char- 
acter. Brahminism, like the Church of Rome, 
teaches an exclusive Spiritualism, glorifying pe- 
nances and martyrdom, and considers the body 
the enemy ot the soul. But Buddhism and 
Protestantism accept nature and its laws, and 
make it a religion of humanity as well as of 
devotion. There may be some exceptions, but 
the rule generally applies. 

The Roman Catholic Church and Brahmin- 
ism place the essence of religion in sacrifices. 
The daily sacrifice of mass is the central fea- 
ture of the former, while Protestantism and 
Buddhism save the soul by teaching. In the 
Roman Church the sermon is subordinate to 
mass, while in Protestantism and Buddhism 
sermons are the main instruments by which 
souls are saved. 

Brahminism is a system of inflexible castes; 
the priestly order is made distinct and supreme. 
So in Romanism the priesthood alone consti- 
tute the church, while in Buddhism and Pro- 
testantism the laity regain their rights. Bud- 
dhism in Asia, like Protestantism in Europe 
and America, is a revolt of nature against spirit, 
of humanity against caste, of individual free- 
dom against the despotism of an order, of sal- 
vation by faith against salvation by sacrament. 

While Buddhism is often called the Protest- 
antism of the East, it has many of the forms 
and ceremonies of Romanism. The chanting 
of prayers, counting of beads, burning of in- 
cense and candles before the image of the vir- 
gin Mary, called the queen of heaven, having 



105 



an infant in her arms and holding a cross. 
While Buddhism makes God or the good and 
heaven to be equivalent to nothing or repose, 
it intensifies and exaggerates evil. Though 
heaven is a blank, hell is a very solid reality. 
It is present and future too; everything in the 
thousand hells of Buddhism is painted as viv- 
idly as in the hell of Dantes. God has disap- 
peared from the universe and in his place is 
only the inexorable law, which grinds on for- 
ever. It punishes and rewards, but has no 
love in it. It is only dead, cold, hard, cruel, 
unrelenting law. Yet Buddhists are not athe- 
ists any more than a child who has never heard 
of God. A child cannot be either deist of 
atheist, because it has no theology. 

The platonic philosophy was able to grasp 
and hold the idea of God and man, the infinite 
and finite, the eternal and the temporal. 
Christianity recognizes God as the infinite and 
eternal, but recognizes also the world of time 
and space as real. Man exists as well as God; 
we love God, we must love man too. Brahmin- 
ism loves God, but not man; it has piety, but 
no humanity. Buddhism loves man, but not 
God; it has humanity, no piety; if it has piety 
it is by a beautiful want of logic, its heart being 
wiser than its head. 

Christianity takes all the good there is in the 
Buddhist doctrine and gives man a live God, 
a soul, a heaven, and a hereafter. Buddhism 
makes man struggle up to God, Avhile Christian- 
ity makes God come down to man, and unites 
all in one vast brotherhood. 

For further information I refer you to the 
"Esoteric Buddhism," by Sinnett: 

"The one universal spirit comprehending 
eternal matter, motion, space and duration, 
evolves the boundless cosmos, comprising 
countless solar systems, each consisting of seven 
planetary chains of seven planets each. 

"Evolution takes a like course through each 
planetary chain, the members of which are 
intimately bound together, by subtile currents 
and forces. The passage of individual spiritual 
entities round this chain constitutes the evolu- 
tion of man, which is still in progress. There 
are seven kingdoms of nature. Of the three 
lowest Western science knows nothing. The 
mineral, vegetable, animal and man complete 
the list, the latter including beings of higher 



organization than we are yet familiar with. 
The wave of existence makes seven rounds 
through the planetary chain, each sphere being 
fitted for a different phase of progress, regarding 
both animate and inanimate nature. Darwin's 
'Missing Link' is picked up here. Man, 
whose destiny is the principal object of inquiry, 
on each round develops in each sphere seven 
great root races, each producing seven sub- 
races, again divided into seven branches, and it 
is well enough to know that we are of the 
fourth round, fifth race and seventh sub-race; 
or, in other words, just beyond the middle 
point of our cyclic career. Considering that 
the individual nomad makes its progress by 
successive incarnations of not less than two to 
each branch race, and that the evolution of our 
present root-race began about one million years 
ago, the magnitude and duration of the scheme 
begins to dawn upon the mind, and on learning 
that beyond the seven rounds of each planetary 
chain lies the solar, and beyond that universal 
cycle, imagination retires baffled from the at- 
tempt to realize the plan. 

"Seven distinct principles enter into the 
constitution of man; the body, vitality, the 
astral body, the animal soul, the human soul, 
the spiritual soul, and spirit. The first needs 
no explanation. The second is matter in its 
aspect as force. Though immaterial, its affinity 
for gross matter prevents its separation from it 
except by instant translation to some other 
particle or mass. We get the idea in the 
modern theory of the ' Persistence of Force.' 
The astral body is the eternal duplicate of the 
physical body — its original design. It guides 
vitality in its work on the physical particles, 
and causes it to build up the shape which these 
assume. Query: Has this any bearing on 
that stumbling block of modern biology, the 
subsequent determination of apparently identi- 
cal embryos.? These three lower principles are 
of the earth earthy, perishable in their nature 
as a single entity, and done with by man at his 
death. The animal soul is the first of the 
principles which attaches to man's higher 
nature. It is the seat of the desires and the 
vehicle of will, influencing, and influenced by 
the fifth principle, the human soul. This is 
the seat of reason and memory, and in the 
majority of mankind is not yet fully developed. 



106 



It follows as a matter of course that the sixth 
principle, the spiritual soul, is yet in embyro. 
Yet the sixth and also the seventh principle, or 
pure spirit, inheres in man's nature, and the 
human soul is capable of assimilating them in 
its progress to perfection. This seven-fold 
nature of man is the key to his destiny. At 
death the three lower principles are finally 
abandoned by that which is really man himself, 
the Ego, and the remaining principles escape 
to Devachan, the world of spirits. A contest 
ensues, the fourth principle drawing the fifth 
earthward, while the sixth and seventh attract 
it upward. The lower instincts, impulses and 
recollections of the fifth adhere to the fourth, 
while its most elevated and spiritual portions 
cling to the sixth and seventh. Devachan is a 
state, not a locality, in which the soul experi- 
ences a subjective existence. The karma of 
physical existence, that is, the affinities for good 
and evil, generated by man during objective 
life, determine the duration and character of the 
subjective life. Like earthly existence it has 
its season of infancy, prime and exhaustion, 
passing through oblivion, not into death, but 
birth, reincarnation and the resumption of 
action which begets a new karma, to be worked 
out in another term of devachan. So the 
process goes on from race to race, from sphere 
to sphere, from round to round, until perfected 
humanity attains its destiny in the repose of 
Nirvana; not the Nirvana of popular miscon- 
ception — annihilation — but the sublime state of 
conscious rest in Omniscience. 'The dew- 
drop slips into the shining sea.' 

"Fantastic and absurd as much of this 
' Theory of Nature' may appear, it cannot fail 
in some respects to arouse earnest attention. 
Is it nothing that ancient religion and modern 
science clasp hands across the interval of thirty 
centuries } 

*'The most prominent and yet unsettled 
theories of modern thought, the nebular 
hypothesis, evolution, the descent of man, du- 
bious problems in biology, ethnology and kin- 
dred sciences are incorporated with and made 
a part of an ancient religo-philosophic system, 
and besides the grand sweep of these Oriental 
generalizations, the speculations of modern 
science seems timid, tentative and feeble. 

**Is it possible that our Western civilization | 



does not embrace all that is known of nature 
and man ? That along other lines of inquiry, 
and following methods strange and unsatisfactory 
to us, other men have through centuries pushed 
their investigations and stored up the results in 
the archives of secret associations; and that 
now, when modern thought, released from 
mediceval fetters, is preparing the way for the 
recognition of truths in nature, hitherto un- 
known or denounced, these stores are to be 
opened to our view to prove the coherence of 
all truth?" 

The religions of Persia, Egypt, Greece and 
Rome have come to an end, having shared the 
fate of their civilization, and while Brahma, 
Buddha, India and Islam have been arrested, 
Christianity has taken a milder form, and a 
new religion called modern Spiritualism has 
sprung up, which in the last quarter of a century 
has spread over the whole civilized world, mak- 
ing inroads upon all other religions. It now 
numbers not less than twenty-five millions, of 
the most intelligent advanced thinkers of the 
age, .while the Christian religions vary from one 
hundred and twenty to one hundred and seventy 
millions, the Buddhist from two hundred and 
twenty-two to three hundred and twenty mill- 
ions, the Mohammedans from one hundred and 
ten to one hundred and sixty millions, the 
Brahmins from one hundred and eleven to one 
hundred and thirty millions, the Jews from 
four to six millions. That of the Chinese re- 
ligions we have no figures to go by. 

M. Hubner gives the following religious sta- 
tistics, comprising the leading religions of the 
world: 

CHRISTIANS, 400,000,000. 

Roman Catholics 200,000,000 

Protestants 110,000,000 

Greeks 80,000,000 

Various other sects 10,000,000 

NON-CHRISTIANS, 992,500,000. 

Buddhists 500,000,000 

Brahmins 150,000,000 

Mohammedans 80,000,000 

Israelites 6,500,000 

Unknown different religions. . . . 240,000,000 

Unknown relictions 16,000,000 



Total 1,392,500,000 



107 



It is generally conceded that the teachings 
of Confucius, which are rather a philosophy 
than a religion, are among the oldest we have 
record of, while that of Lao-tse and Tao-ism, 
its contemporary, was founded on that of spir- 
itism. Herodotus, who traveled in Egypt 450 
B. C, gives us an account of the monuments 
in that country, in which were found China 
. ware, with Chinese mottos, which RoselUni 
believes to have been imported from China by 
kings contemporary with or before the time of 
Moses. There have been similar vases found 
in the ruins of Troy, that go to prove that 
China was a highly civilized nation long before 
the siege of Troy, and if Chinese history is to 
be relied on, it will take us back into the gray 
mist of the past some twenty-five thousand 
years, and it is now generally admitted that 
Confucius lived at least five hundred and fifty 
hears before the Christian era. 

Chronologi.sts differ as to which is the oldest 
civilization, Egypt or India. The Greeks and 
Romans trace back to Egypt, and for a long 
period of time it was thought that Egypt was 
the cradle of civilization. But learned philol- 
ogists and ethnologists contend that India is 
the oldest in the arts and has the oldest reli- 
gions. Others again claim that they are differ- 
ent and, perhaps, spontaneous developments. 
Plato gives us an intimation that the Egyptians 
had knowledge of the submerged continent of 
Atlantis. And from the similarity of the tem- 
ples and pyramids in Central America it might 
have been possible, at a very remote period, 
that these countries had intercourse with each 
other. 

Every religion has been an outgrowth of pre- 
ceding religious faiths. Back of all religions 
and civilizations there is an older religion and 
civilization. Palestine had been colonized by 
Arab tribes from Idumea and Phoenicia Ions 
before it was invaded by the children of Israel 
under the leadership of Joshua and Moses. 
Eventually they became more or less consoli- 
dated as the kingdoms of Samaria and Judea. 
Their fables, legends, traditions and family 
religions were more or less amalgamated and 
nationalized under the name of Judea. 

" The greater part of the gods of all nations 
were ancient heroes, famous for their achieve- 
ments and their worthy deeds, and were such | 



as kings, generals and founders of cities. To 
these some added the splendid and useful ob- 
jects in the natural world, as the sun, moon 
and stars, and some were not ashamed to pay 
divine honors to mountains, rivers, trees, etc. 
The worship of these deities consisted in cere- 
monies, sacrifices and prayers. The ceremo- 
nies were for the most part absurd and ridicu- 
lous, and thoroughly debasing, obscene and 
cruel. The prayers were truly insipid and void 
of piety, both in form and matter. The priests 
who presided over this worship basely abused 
their authority to impose on the people. The 
whole pagan system had not the least efficacy 
to produce and cherish virtuous emotions in the 
soul, because the gods and goddesses were pat- 
terns of vice, and the priests bad men, and the 
doctrines false." (See Mosheim's "Church 
History.") 

The narrow creeds excluding God, the Fath- 
er, from any communication with the great 
majority of human beings, is revolting to com- 
mon sense and humanity. Selecting a few of his 
chosen children to be saved and leaving the 
rest to perish in their ignorance, is an extremely 
selfish view of an intelligent God. He caused 
some to be born in India, some in China, and 
others in Europe, Africa, America, and in the 
far-distant islands of the sea; they are all 
His children and they are all as dear to him as 
are the Jews. He speaks to each of them 
through the same channel, whether he be a 
Brahmin, Buddhist, Chinese, Mohammedan, 
Christian, pagan or heathen; " In Him we live 
and move and have our being." He is above 
all, and through all, and in all. 

"Abraham," says Max Muller, "was the 
first we have any record of who could raise his 
soul to the contemplation of a Perfect Being 
above all, and the source of all. With pas- 
sionate love he adored this Most High God, 
maker of heaven and earth." The mind of 
Abraham rose to a clear conception of the 
unity of God as excluding all other divine be- 
ings; yet if we will examine the expressions of 
this great Arab chief, as described in the book 
of Genesis, we can see at once that he was a 
great medium and a theosophist, who held con- 
verse with the spirits, the same as our modern 
mediums. When they told him to sacrifice 
his son Isaac he was ready to do it under the 



108 



firm belief that it was the voice of God, when 
he heard another voice that told him not to 
kill Isaac, that there was a lam tangled in the 
vines near by. This was a clear case of clair- 
audience. 

Mr. Renan says the Indo-European race, 
distracted by the variety of the universe, never 
by itself arrived at monotheism. The Semitic 
race, on the other hand, guided by its firm 
and sure sight, instantly unmasked divinity, 
and without reflection or reasoning attained the 
purest form of religion that humanity has ever 
known. The Hebrews, like the Assyrians and 
Babylonians, were divided between monothe- 
ism and sabacism or star-worship. The Se- 
mitic, like the Aryan races, had a confused 
idea of one Supreme God behind all the sec- 
ondary deities. 

Pure monotheism appears to be a direct reve- 
lation to Moses; and even in Jehovah we are 
led to believe that Moses gave him more of the 
attributes of a big Moses or man than that of 
an All Wise and Supreme God. 

Christianity, as soon as it became the reli- 
gion of a no-Semitic race, lost much of its mo- 
notheism and tended to pantheism. They 
added to God *'all above," and the God 
"with all," the God "in us all." The new 
Testament is full of this kind of pantheism, 
God in man as well as God with man. Jesus 
made the step forward from God with man to 
God in man; " I am in them, thou in me." 
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is this idea of 
God, who is not only will and power, not only 
wisdom and law, but love of God, who desires 
communion and intercourse with his children, 
and who, therefore, comes and dwells with 
them. Mohammed teaches a God above us; 
Moses teaches a God above us and yet with us; 
Jesus teaches God above us, God with us and 
God in us. 

Christianity teaches of a Supreme Being who 
is a pure spirit. It is a more spiritual religion 
than Brahminism, for the latter has passed on 
into polytheism and idolatry. Christianity is 



more flexible and is more capable of becoming 
able to supply the religious wants of all races 
of men, therefore it is fitted to become the 
universal religion of man, it being a composif i 
made up of all the previous religions; and cor 
sequently it is an improvement on all the othei 
religions. <. 4.-^C /; ^/( /f "" 

Jesus Christ was a man born a seer, a pro- 
phet and endowed with remarkable mediumis- 
tic gifts, which were improved by development 
by the assistance of the spirits. He was mis- 
understood by his immediate followers, and 
w^as imputed to be something superior to man, 
and his deeds were exaggerated by their unrea- 
soning credulity. Elevated above the multi- 
tude by his superior spirituality, he was quali- 
fied to be a teacher of the sublime inspirations 
which flowed into his receptive mind from wise 
and pure spirits, who made him their mouth- 
piece to the masses. Pure and spiritual in his 
life, he was prepared for rapid progress as a 
spirit; and now, with other ancient prophets 
and exalted men. he holds a place among celes- 
tial spirits, having experienced his seconc^s^ir- 
itual birth and become a dweller in the thi 
sphere. 

Peter, in Acts ii: 22, says: "I see in J 
of Nazareth a man approved of by God ar 
you by miracles, wonders and signs that L 
did in him." " I and my father are one;" Oi 
in purpose, one in spirit. He woishiped in 
spirit, and he never lost sight of the spiritual 
w^orld. God did not speak to him from with- 
out. He feels that God is in him. He needed - 
no sound of thunder, like Moses; no revealin. V 
tempest, like Job; no familiar oracle, like t' 
Grecian sage; but he consciously lived in a 
with the Father in the spiritual, as he was c 
rapport with the Divine mind, which permeatec 
all the whole universe. If man would live a:; 
Christ directed, and in harmony with natural 
laws, he could converse with angels (spirits) as 
they did in the days of Abraham, Christ and 
the apostles, ^o ^^_^^^ ^ ^^ 



I 



WHO SHALL WE ELECT 

U. S. SENATOE ? 



Sacramento, January 3d, 1881. 

To the Honorable llembers of the Legislature of the State of 
California : 

This is a question that every honest member should ask 
himself, as a representative of a free people who have dele- 
gated that power to him. Had it been left to the voice of 
the people, it would have been a man in sympathy with 
them. But, owing to a change in the J^ew Constitution, 
and a split in the Democratic ranks arising therefrom, the 
Republicans have got a majority on joint ballot ; it gives 
the minority party the power of choosing the man, which 
is one of the evils arising out of this form of electing 
* United States Senators, and the Constitution should be 
changed, for it has outlived its usefulnes, and has become a 
fruitful source of corruption. It would remove the choice 
from a few Legislators, who have often become tools in the 
hands of partizans, to be used in the election of men not 
pre-eminently known for carrying their ideas in their head, 
but in their pockets, so that the election of a U. S. Senator 
now is a question of the longest purse and the richest 
backers. In these contests the interest of the people arc 
lost sight of, and the highest and proudest position be- 
comes a place of barter and trade. This has tended to drive 
out of politices the ablest and purest men, and opened the 
door for a class of second rate men, who by accident, ras- 
cality, or being the servitors of Railroad rings, monopolies 
who put up the money to buy seats for them in the U. 8. 
Senate ; for hired attorneys are placed there to look after 
their interest, and not that of the people. This class of 
Senators, whether Democrats or Republicans, pool their 
issues, so that it is difficult to get any Legislature that will 
benefit the people and restrict their corporate powers. 

There is an able article in the December number of 
Scribner's Magazine, in which it is shown that there are 



[2] 

four great Railroad Kings, that gathers all the wealth of the 
country into their coffers and controls the Legislature and 
Congress. 

They may at any time and for 2inj reason satisfactory to 
themselves, by a single stroke of the pen, reduce the value 
of property in this country hundreds of millions of dollars; 

^ ^ ^ ]^o Congress would dare to exercise so vast a 
power, except upon a necessity of the most imperative 
nature; and yet these gentlemen exercise it whenever it 
suits their supreme will and pleasure without an explana- 
tion or apology. With the rapid and inevitable progress of 
combination, these colossal organizations are daily becom- 
ing stronger and more imperious. The day is not far 
distant, if it hns not already arrived, when it will be the 
duty of the statesman to inquire whether there is less dan- 
ger in leaving the property and industrial interests of the 
people thus wholly at the mercy of a few men, who recog- 
nize no responsibility but to their stockholders, (and they 
pay little attention to them), and no principle of action, but 
personal and corporate aggrandizement than in adding some- 
what to the power and patrinage of a Government directly 
responsible to the people, and under their control." 

See Report of United States Senate Committee on Trans- 
portation Routes, page 158. 

"Jay Gould in his evidence before the New York Legis- 'j 
lative Committee in 1873, on the investigation of the af- • 
fairs of the Erie Railroad openly testified as follows:" f 

" *I do not know him much; I paid towards helping/rzenc?- 
ly men; we had four States to look after, and we had to suit 
our politics to circumstances. In a Democratic district, I |v. 

was a Democrat ; in a Republican district, I was a Republi- 
can ; and in a doubtful district, I was doubtful ; but in ev- 
ery district and at all times, I have alwaws been an Erie 
Man, * 5^ * i^y^ could distinctly recall that he 

had iDcen in th^ habit of sending money into the numerous 
districts all over the State, either to control nominations or 
elections of Senators and members of the Assembly." ' 

Senator Beck, of Kentucky in a speech, said : 

"It is impossible to have an honest Legislature, State or 
Federal, so long as representives are sent who owe their 
election to, or are personally interested in great moneyed 
corporations or monopolies, no matter whether they call 
themselves Democrats or Republicans; they are not the rep- 
resentatives of the people ; they are simply the agents and 
attorneys of those who seek, by taxing the masses, to enrich 
themselves, whenever they owe their election to monopolies 
or are themselves interested .in class legislation." 



[3] 

And so bold have these hired tools become, that they talk 
of bribery without even a blush. Mr. F. B, Cowen said: 
"I have heard the counsel of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company, standing in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 
threaten that Court with the displeasure of Ms clients if it de- 
eided against them, and all the blood in my body tingled with 
shame at the humiliating spectacle,'' 

It is hoped that the comraision has modified the Burlin- 
game Treaty so as to stop Chinese immigration; if not we 
will have to resort to "Boycotting." 

Secession has been crushed, and slavery ended, old issues 
are dead, and let them be buried; no longer let us howl over 
the past and keep up sectional strife, for political purposes, 
and array a solid North against a solid South, but let us 
start new issues that will infuse new thoughts and new ques- 
tions of state and national policy. The tariff, free trade and 
free ship that will revive our commerce, that has been driv- 
en from the sea. Let us discnss the great questions of cur- 
rency and the propriety of withdrawing $800,000,000 of legal 
tender, and issuing National Bank notes, by which the gov- 
ernment loses $28,000,000, yearly ,»that goes into the hands 
of the Capitalist. Let us discuss the right of the Railroads, 
and the restriction of the gigantic corporation in which co- 
losal fortunes are made out of the poor farmer, miner and 
laborer, who can only get a bare living. 

Let us discuss the rights of labor, capital and land 
questions; whether it is best to encourage the growth of mo- 
nopolies, which hold and control large tracts of wild land 
for speculation and hunting purposes, to the detriment of 
the settler and pioneer, who has made " the desert to 
blossom as the rose." It cost France rivers of blood to 
break up the Feudal Tenure. It is now convulsing Ireland 
and England. What right has one man to monopolize the 
soil, when thousands are destitute of homes, a place to draw 
nourishment from the breast of mother earth ? A fee in 
the soil makes man patriotic and law abiding, it gives per- 
manacy, order and prosperity. 

Let us discuss the propriety of amending the Constitu- 
tion so that the President and U. S. Senators could be 
elected by the people, for it is their right to vote direct for 
them, and is in accordance with the age. It will remove the 
corrupting influence around Legeslatures, and men of brains 
and principle will have a chance before the people. It 
will bring back to the Senate such men as Webster, Sumner, 
Clay, Calhoun and Benton. It will prevent a minority Pres- 
ident being forced upon the people, which came near bring- 
ing on another civil war. Thoge are live questions that will 



[4] 

divide up the people in the different States, and draw their 
minds from secional hatred. 

We want hve men to come to the front with new ideas 
that will bury the past, who will look to the interests of 
the people and nation, and not to individuals. 

For we are one and inseparable nation, bound together 
by the ties of blood, history, association ; by rivers, lakes, 
seas, and oceans ; by railroads telegraph wires ; and if we 
are true to ourselves and our country, a bright furture awaits 
us. The only enemy that now stares us in the face, is fraud 
and corruption in high places. It is fiast spreading its bane- 
ful, gangrene influence over the people. It is high time 
it was cut out, or it will bring on mortification and death to 
liberty and freedom in America. 

Phillip's gold had more influence over the corrupt Athen- 
ians, than the burning eloquence of Demosthenes, who was 
forced to flee to the temple for protection. Cicero was un- 
able to save the Roman Eepublic from a corrupt Senate, 
and was forced to flee, and was assassinated by his freed 
man. 

Montesque says : "Of What avails is the best Code of Laws 
if the people are too corrupt to enforce them." 

The 67th section of our Penal Code is ample to protect 
the people, but it remains a dead letter upon our statute 
books. Who has the manhood to enforce it ? There has 
been but few U. S. Senators elected in this State without 
the illegitimate use of coin and it is time it was ended ; 
there is no honor in buying an office. 

So long as the people suffer themselves to be divided 
into political factions, whose leaders lose sight of the best 
interests of the people, and fight over dead issues and their re- 
presentatives bind themselves by King Caucus, they can never 
expect any reform in the National Government which has 
become one of the most corrupt, where hired loblyists live 
in splendor, and women of doubtful character line the halls 
of Congress and fill places in the Departments. 

A VOICE FROM THE PEOPLE. 



SPEECH OF J. P. DAMERON, 

BEFORE THE 

Printers' Hancock and English Club, 

SAN FRANCISCO. 

I always like to talk to the printers ; they are a wide-awake, in- 
telligent set of fellows; well posted on all questions of the day. 
They set up all the news before daylight, so it comes to us second- 
handed in the Morning Call, Alia, and Chronicle, etc. 

The press is far mightier than the sword, it reaches all, and forma 
the public opinion. It talks with everybody that- reads, and the 
man that don't read the papers is a natural curiosity, or very ig- 
norant. The press is the most powerful engine ever invented. It 
is revolutionizing the world, driving back ignorance and supersti- 
tion, and advancing the cause of democracy and humanity. It ele- 
vates man and makes him a free man and in favor of elective 
government. 

There is something grand and glorious in the thought of coming 
together once every four years, at the ballot box, to elect our Pres- 
ident, who is the commander of the army and navy— of 45 millions 
of the most intelligent and enterprising people upon the face of the 
globe. He should be the best, the purest, the bravest and the 
wisest that could be found, as he represents the choice of the whole 
people. He holds in his hands the reins of government, and shapes 
its future course, that brings happiness and prosperity or discord and 
decline ; a nation's greatness, prosperity and happiness is dependent 
on the justness of laws and the fairness of their administration, and 
the wisdom and honest}^ of its rulers and legislators. They set the 
example, the people follow. But when the rulers and office holders 
become corrupt, the nation declines, and a race of freemen sinks in- 
to a banditti of robbers murderers thieves, beggars and slaves. Like 
Greece, which was once a free and prosperous nation; so long as the 
highest aspiration of the people was their love of liberty and country 
there was no power on earth that could subdue them ; but their 
leaders became corrupt, and used gold to carry elections, 
which debauched the public mind so that Phillip's gold had 
more influence over them than the burning eloquence of Demos- 
thenes, who fell a victim to the rabble which was led by such 
designing demagogues as Kearney, who is used to divide up the 
people into factions, so that they can be controlled by the few 
who are prompted by selfish ambition, and they will resort to 



[2] 

any measures to carry their point. In this way the masses are 
kept in slavery and ignorance. 

In all free governments there will be two great parties — the ins 
and the outs. Like the old Whig and Democratic parties, they 
held each other in check, and forced the opposition to put up their 
best men or the people would fire them out. These two noble old 
parties were like the two eyes of Greece — Athens and Sparta — they 
watched over the liberties of the people. 

"The old whig party in the northern States," says Mr. Everet, 
"was absorbed by the Republican party, which gave Bell and 
Everet a small Union vote." 

In the Presidential election oflSGO the parties were divided as 
follows : 

NORTH. 

Republican. Opposition. 

N. E. states 296,797 184,854 

Western States 854,315 803,198 

Middle and non-Seceding States 713,501 979,497 

Total 1,864,613 1,967,549 

Majority 103,026 

SOUTHERN SECDINQ STATES. 

Pro-Slavery Democratic. Opposition. 

436,949 419,246 

Majority 17.703 

Mr. Lincoln received 1,865,913 votes; Douglas received 1,374,664 
votes ; Breckinridge, 847,404 votes ; and Bell received 591,900 
votes — making a majority against Mr. Lincoln of 2,818,968. And 
the united vote of the Douglas and Breckenridge democracy was 
2,222,068 votes. Mr. Lincoln did not receive a vote in Georgia, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas ; 
and a very small scattering vote in Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia. 

It left the Democratic party— the only national party— -to with- 
stand the storm of fanaticisms that had been inaugurated in the 
North, that had no respect for the constitution or constitutional 
rights. Said an eloquent orator of the north: *'Tear it in shreds and 
fire it at the South, and let us get rid of slavery." Burlingame 
said: "It was a league with the Devil and a covenant with Hell." 
They advocated a Higher Law. They are willing to destroy every- 
thing that don't comfbrm with their idea of right, which is self, 
and self-aggrandizement. *'They regard the government," says Judge 
Black, "as a mere commercial machine, out of which they could 
make much ' gayneful jpillage.' They employ all manner of device 
and rhetoric to glority the modern abolitionist, and throw foul scorn 
of traitor and rebel, not only on the Southern people, but the 
whole democracy of the country which had the manhood to oppose 
them." 



C3J 

The secessionist of the South and the abolitionist of the l^orth 
inaugurated the war which they have ever since kept up, waving 
the bloody shirt as the matador does the red flag to enrage the 
bull. Not that they loved the Union any better than the Demo- 
crats ; for nearly all the leading generals, like McClellan, Han- 
cock, Hooker, Kosencrans, Seigel and all the best fighting men 
in the Union array were democrats, who, like true and brave 
soldiers, said, when the armies of the South surrendered, "we are 
friends and will forgive you, let the past be forgotten;" so now let 
us unite the blue and gray like the noble house of Lancaster and 
York, entwine the red and white roses around one common stand- 
ard, and bear it aloft to victory and to greatness, to be divided no 
more ; for we are and one inseperable nation, bound together by 
all the ties of blood, association, history, interest and patriotism 
by railroads, telegraph wires, rivers, lakes and oceans, speaking the 
same language, governed by the same common law, and worship- 
ping the same God. 

The Federal Union must be preserved at all hazards, for its 
greatness has only begun. If we prove true to ourselves and our 
country a bright future awaits us ; our fathers have laid the founda- 
tion broad and deep for the Temple of Liberty. They have given 
to us a Constitution that is capable of being extended over the 
whole American Continent under the interpretation of such men as 
Jefi:erson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall. They have given 
to us a flag that every State can be represented on until the whole 
field is covered over with one galaxy of stars. They have given to 
us the best and most liberal form of government ever devised by 
mortal man, if this cursed Republican j)arty don't ruin it ; the blood 
of the nation has cemented the Union. The 14th and 15th Amend- 
ments to the Constitution have forever settled the question of seces- 
sion and the southern debt ; so let us go to work like good citizens, 
and look to the interest of the people, and not the politicians who 
inaugurated the last war. 

There are really but two forms of government, a Democracy and 
a Monarchy. All others are intermediate shades. The Republican 
party leans toward a strong government — a one man power — a cen- 
tralized government, a concrete notion, which means the destruction 
of States and the supremacy of the Federal government, which in- 
vests Congress and the Supreme Court with full power over the life 
and property of the individual ; which removes the power from the 
people and places it in the hands of a few who reside at Washing- 
ton, thus paving the road to centralization and the destruction of 
the liberty of the people. With a large standing army and a host 
of United States Marshals, they can say who shall vote, who are 
legal voters, what votes shall be counted, and who is elected. 

There has always been, and is now, nearly as many democrats 
iu the Northern States as republicans. There was 2,669,970 dem- 



[4] 

ocratic votes cast in the Northern States for Mr. Tilden, while Mr. 
Hayes got 2,936,555, so there was a difference of 266,585 votes in 
the I^Torth, yet the Kepublican party would have you believe that 
all these men are copperheads and traitors. Though Tilden had a 
majority of over 250,000, he was swindled out of the election, which 
is a disgrace to the nation, and ought to cover up the Republican 
party with infamy. Any attempt to destroy the purity of. the 
ballot box, the American people must put their condemna- 
tion upon, for such disgraceful conduct has shaken the pillars 
of freedom, and the repetition of such a fraud will lead to civil 
war and the destruction of our free government; for when men 
can't have a fair election they will resort to arms. Man will never 
willingly submit to a wrong. It should be made treason to tamper 
with the ballot box, or bribe men to vote. 

The only way a free government can be run is by acting fairly 
and squarely, and abide the wish of the majority at the ballot box, 
and spurn any attempt at fraud to carry the election. ]^ow there is 
no honest fair-minded man who will claim that Hayes was honestly 
elected by the majority of the free voters, or that he was entitled to 
the office. But by rascality and returning boards, and the 7 by 8 
Commission, he was counted in ; and for this insult, for this wrong, 
the people are determined to teach the Republican party that they 
are the sovereigns, and intend to elect Hancock and English by such 
a majority that there will be no eftbrt made to count them out. 

DEMOCRACY IS THE TENDENCY OF THE AGE. 

"For the ultimate end of all creation," says Dr. Draper, " is to pro- 
duce individualized intelligence, man" — a democrat, capable of 
thinking and acting for himself, and willing to allow his fellow-man 
to do the same. And the end of all government should be to ele- 
vate him to the exalted position of self-government. I am a. man, 
and you are another ; we are equal before the law and should be 
willing to be ruled by the voice of the majont3\ Vox populi vox Dei, 

The Democratic Party was born in the bosom of Jefferson, the 
author of the Declaration of Independence, nurtued and reared to 
manhood by Jackson. It is the party of the people. It believes 
in trusting in the honor, patriotism, and manhood of the American 
people. It believes in open, free and fair discussion, and not ap- 
pealing to local prejudice and sectional issues, but treating all 
alike and respecting them in their rights guaranteed utider the 
Constitution. 

It has made this country what it was before the war, and had 
acquired every foot of soil outside of the thirteen original colonies, 
except Alaska, which is a fair specimen of what the Republican 
party would make the whole countiy. The Democracy is the 
only national party. The principles of the Democracy are innate in 
the hearts of the American people. So lay aside your local differ- 



[6] 

ences and stand up for the old Democratic party, for the tendency of 
the age is in that direction. So let us rally around the old flag of 
Democracy and elect General Hancock President. The Eepub- 
licans can't And anything against him. They have looked into his 
past record and find him a clean man, full of patriotism and devo- 
tion to the Union, the hero of forty-one battles in the defence of his 
country, his person covered with scars. His blood has been poured 
out on the soil of his own native State, which will honor him with 
her electoral vote this Fall. He loves his country with the devo- 
tion of an affectionate child for his mother. JSTature has been 
bountiful in her gifts, and made him great in body and mind. 
Brave as a lion in battle, yet as gentle as a girl in the time of peace. 

The Democratic Convention with one voice said he w^as the right 
man, and they gave him the nomination. The American people 
will this Fall say, come up Gen. Hancock, and take command of 
the army and navy, and be President of the whole United States. 
Your gallantry saved the Union army at Gettysburg, and we believe 
that you can bring peace and prosperty to our distracted country. 
The North knows that he is sound on the Union, and the South 
that he is brave, just and generous, as he showed himself while in 
command of the Southern Department, when he said to the people 
of that distracted country, when Gens. Sheridan and Mowry had 
failed, "Go about your business, obey the civil laws of your country; 
that the military was subordinate to the civil." And his course 
brought order out of chaos, and the people of the South love him. 
His letter to Governor Pease of Texas showed that he was a states- 
man as well as a General. His letter to General Sherman confirms 
it, and places him along with the great Generals and statesmen of 
the past. 

Now for a moment let us contrast the leaders of these two great 
political parties. There is something historic in the name of Han- 
cock ; there is none in Garfield. If there is anything in being a 
general, Hancock is a bigger general, a " Westpointer,** while Gar- 
field is only a political general. If there is anything in old scars, 
according to the Roman idea of bravery he has got him again. 
This political general Garfield had a better liking for the specula- 
tive department of the army than at the head of columns in battle. 
As an executive officer, Hancock has shown himself a statesman 
without a stain ; while Gen. Garfield has been mixed up in the 
slime of the Credit Mobilier, where millions were stolen. Yet, the 
Republican party say he would not compromise his honor for so 
small a sum as $329. Lord Bacon and Marks were found guilty for 
a less sum. It is only evidence, capable of proof — not what they 
got away with. The Good Book tells us, "the way of the trans- 
gressor is hard;" for there is an Invisible Power behind the ^screen 
that shapes and directs the destinies of men and nations, and if He 
used and exerted his influence in throwing around Washington a 



[6] 

shield, and giving to him a charmed life, He has done the same to 
Gen. Hancock. His clothes were riddled with bullets, his horse 
time and again shot from under him; though covered with wounds, 
his life was spared ; and his political head saved from the machina- 
tions of this man Garfield, whose instincts has been turned to him 
by some iiend. Three times has he failed to remove him from the 
army : in each attempt the hand of death struck down a republican 
general, which promoted Hancock to a higher grade. First, was 
the death of Gen. Thomas ; second, the death of Mead ; third, the 
death of Gen. Hal leek. You can't defeat the will of God. 

What is the record of Garfield and Arthur. One mixed up in 
the Credit Mobilier, the De Golyer contract, the Louisiana Return- 
ino- Board,''the back-pay dodge, defrauding Mr. Tilden out of the 
Presidency — which ought to bring the blush of shame to every man- 
ly Republican — for the ballot box is the mc^t sacred right a free- 
man can enjo3^ Garfield has also lent his influence in defeating the 
bill to restrict Chinese immigration, which ought to damn him with 
every true Californian. As to Arthur, he was fired out by Hayes 
for corrupt practices under the civil service reform. A sweet pair 
of ducks to be President and Vice-President of this great Republic. 
But they are in keeping with just such men as has run the govern- 
ment for the last decade of years — whose highest aspiration is to 
2:et an oflSce, so they can steal themselves rich, as tliey all have 
done • and they wish to elect these men as a reward for the price of 

their infamy. 

The Repubhcan party has changed the entire policy of the gov- 
ernment, and created a money aristocracy that rule the land by bri- 
bery fraud and corruption. They take advantage of the poor man s 
necessity, which know^s no law; and he is often forced to take the 
bribe, the price of his liberty. They boldly assert that they ean 
raise $20,000,000 by assessments on 100,000 office holders, which 
will buy up enough votes to carry the election. In this way a moneyed 
aristocracy has become dangerous. The love of money, and what it 
can purchase, has proved the destruction of all free governments, by 
corruptino- the people's representatives and ofiice holders, so that its 
efi:ect is felt in the halls of legislation, and, in some cases, has cor- 
rupted the Courts of Justice. They liave made it the ruling power 
to reach the hearts of the people ; they have made it king. They 
have so debauched the public mind, that many who claim to be 
respectable will not vote or work without pay, and that it is hard to 
t^et an ofiice now merely on merit ; and the palms of many hands in 
hio-h position has now to feel the weight of the golden ducat, before 
they will act or vote. 

When the Republican party went into power, this was a free 
and happy country, out of debt, and the annual expenses of the 
government was not over $60,000,000. Now they have run it up to 
$350,000,000, one-half of which goes into the pockets of the bond- 



[7]- 

holders, who pay no tax. They say that these bonds were made to 
pay the expense of the war, which they made to cost over 
15,000,000,000, with a destruction of as much more property. 

The census of 1860 shows tliat the real and personal estate of the 
United States was only $16,000,000,000 ; of that amount the pro- 
ducing industry was ?7, 000,000, 000, while that owned by the capi- 
talist was $9,000,000,000. The census of 1870 shows that the wealth 
of the United States had advan'ced to $30,000,000,000— nearly 
doubling itself in that time, although $10,000,000,000 had been 
wasted in the war. But the most remarkable thing is, that while 
the producing industry had only increased to $11,000,000,000, that 
of capital had increased to $19,000,000,000— that the United States 
had got rich on her own indebtedness. That every State, county, 
town, and the general government were loaded down with bonds 
that bad been issued to pay the expenses of the war, which the 
dealers in shoddy clothes, arms and provisions had bought up at a 
large discount, which they set down as capital — the bonded indebt- 
edness of the country. 

Stewart Mills says that "capital is labor stored up; it is some 
thing saved, not destroyed." It is not bonded indebtedness^ which is, 
like what Mark Twain said : "He had got rich, got married, and 
built a fine house and ornamented it with a cupola and mortgage ; 
but the most difiicult thing to get rid of was the cursed mortgage." 

All WEALTH is the product of labor, whether dug out of the soil or 
mines, or snatched from the sea. Each and every thing that bears 
the mark of civilizatien is the product of labor, by which nature 
has been subdued and forced under the control of man. The forests 
that have been cleared ; the rich prairies that have been converted 
into fields of corn, that bow their golden heads to the sickle or 
reaper ; the iron, the gold and silver, all the minerals that have 
been dug out of the earth and refined, and converted to the use of 
man, is wealth, is capital, and should be held in reserve to assist and 
advance the interest of labor, and to open up new industries ; but, 
instead, it is invested in bonds, and the interest spent in foreign 
countries, which is a direct tax on the energies of a tax-ridden 
people. 

The net earnings of the people are about $20 a year per capita, 
which, after all expenses are paid, goes to the credit side of capital, 
and is stored up to supply any deficiency tliat might arise the next 
year ; but $16 per capita of this fund is now absorbed to pay taxes 
and the interest on these bonds, so instead of a reserved fund of $20 
per capita, the people have only a reserved fund of $4 per capita to 
fall back upon in case of a deficiency; so that labor has increased 
faster than tlie capital to develop new industries ; and as bonds pay 
better than anything else, all the money goes into them ; conse- 
quently there is no demand for labor, which has to go begging for 
want of employment, and the laud is full of idle men and tramps 
huntino^ work. 



[8] 

Capital is always avaricious and demands more than its share, 
and in every contest it gets the best of labor. While labor is toil- 
ing to make more, capital is scheming how to get it. While labor 
is at rest, capital is compounding its interest. Labor won't keep ; 
a day's labor lost is gone forever. ]^ot so with capital; as the price 
of labor goes down, capital goes up. Labor is left to take care of 
itself, while capital is locked in strong iron vaults for safe keeping. 
Labor can knock capital down and destroy it ; but capital is wise, 
and gets laws passed to protect it, and it can hire poor labor to fight 
for it rather than starve ; for there are always a set of fools ready to 
bow down and worship tho golden calf. Capital knows how to draw 
itsalf from circulation and produce hard times. Everything declines 
but the rates of money and the price of bonds, which goes up ; so 
capital, which is the aggregation of labor, is often made to oppress 
the sons of toil. But, in doing so, it brings destruction to both. 
The degradation of labor renders capital insecure ; there should be 
no antagonism between labor and capital ; their interest is the 
same ; the farmer looses nothing by feeding and housing his work 
horses well. Labor has a right to demand a fair compensation for 
work ; labor has a right to good, wholesome food, comfortable shel- 
ter, warm clothes, pure water and fresh air ; this much it has a 
right to demand, before capital should build palaces to live in, or in- 
dulge in fine raiment to wear, sumptuous food to eat, sparkling cham- 
pagnes to drink, and traveling abroad in foreign countries — like the 
Chinaman, taking the money out of the country, which should be used 
to build up factories and open up new industries to give employment 
to labor. The capitalist finds that it pays best to invest in bonds, 
so that he has nothing to do but to clip his coupons and travel in 
Europe, ape foreign flunkyism, and boast what a great goverment 
Old England is, which rests upon a money indebtedness, and sup- 
ports a lot of Barons, Dukes and Lords, all living on the product of 
the man of toil. 

Whenever I see one of these degenerate sons of America, who 
want this noble government changed to that of Monarchy, it 
makes my blood boil to think that man is so selfish, willing to 
sell his manhood, his libert^v,* for the sake of wearing a title that a 
king might confer; willing to marry his daughter to a no-Count 
80 that he may get a little blue blood injected in the family veins. 

The Republican party have been weighed in the balance and 
found wanting. They have done all in their power to degrade 
labor, and corrupt the people. They have, by their treaty made 
by Burlingame (an abolitionist, who did much to bring on the late 
war) made a treaty with China that is now overrunning the Pacific 
slope with cheap labor — another engine in the hands of the rich to 
oppress labor and reduce it down to starving rates on which no 
white man can subsist, much less raise a family. 

Now it behooves every man, whether he be Democrat, Working- 



[9] 

man or Bepublican to come out and show his hand and by his 
ballot proclaim to the world that the Third Ward was opposed to the 
Chinese invasion which had entered it, by crossing Kearnv street, and 
had almost reached the heart of the Ward If not checked, it will 
soon reach the water front and drive every white man out of 
the ward. Like the Canadiai] thistle, wherever it has got a hold 
nothing else will thrive. The squalor, filth and stench will drive 
before them all other nationalities, that even Mr. Hayes and his suit 
could not stand it, in their visit to the Sixth Ward, but were forced to 
return to the Palace Hotel after a short trip to Spoflbrd alley and the 
Chinese quarters. Now I want you all to remember that to-night the 
grand parade of the anti-Chinese takes place that is going to give 
Mr. Hayes a review, an expression of their opinion on the Chinese 
question, and what the people in San Francisco "think of the brother- 
hood of man, so that he may be able from the demonstration to form 
an idea of what we thought of his action in the matter. A Roman 
General, after he had devastated a great city was driven into exile. 
Id his wanderings he revisited the ruins. His conscience smote 
him and he sat down and wept like a child over the misery and 
wretchedness that he had caused to gratify a blind ambition. As 
Mr. Hayes rides around our city may he not read on thousands of 
buildings "To Let." All of which reproach him for his cruel act 
in vetoing the Bill to restrict Chinese immigration. 

Nature has so provided in her wisdom, that her noblest and brav- 
est animals are carniverous, and if we wish to keep up the standard 
of the An^lo-Saxon race, we must not bring them down to vege- 
table diet, so as to compete with Mongohans, who for ages have 
been accustomed to live on rice. No meat-eating race can compete 
with them. They have learned to live on any and everything that 
comes in their way, even on fi.lth and ofial. They are our antipodes 
in every sense of the word. They started from the table-lands of 
Asia and went East, while the Anglo-Saxon race went West. These 
two races have met on our shores, having evolved exactly the op- 
posite ideas about everything. There is no similarity, there is no 
hope of ever making them adopt our civilization, and we have no 
disposition to adopt theirs. They have lived in this State for more 
than a quarter of a century; they have never shown a disposition 
to assimilate with us. They have their laws and customs the same 
as in China. One side of the street is as perfect a China city as 
that of Canton — while the other is Anglo-Saxon; but slowly and 
steadily they encroach. They are willing to work for wages on 
which no white man could live and support a family. And if the 
Government does not offer some solution — some restriction — the 
white man will have to emigrate or make war on them. Many 
have already gone — and we will all have to go. It is only a ques- 
tion of time, unless we do like the hungry lion. When he can do 
no better, he will devour a negro for breakfast. The superior ani- 



[10] 

mal will always prey upon the inferior and weed them out. We 
have taken possession of this country and driven the Indians out — 
are we to tamely submit and let the Chinese starve us out? So if 
the General Government wants to keep peace in the family it must 
modify the Treaty which ought to have been done long ago. 

There is a mistaken idea of many about the brotherhood of man 
and Chinese equahty. They have no idea of liberty or a free gov- 
ernment, honesty or morality. Cold and selfish, they are ready to 
sell liberty and virtue for gold. 

It is unwise and unjust to expect the white mart to be driven out 
by this peaceful invasion of the Chinese. Vattel says "that any 
community has the right to resist a peaceful invasion as well as 
when they come with arms, when it will endanger their institutions 
and government." And what fool is there who will deny this fact, 
that, if the Chinese are not prevented from doing so, they will soon 
overrun this State and reduce it to an Asiatic province. For they 
are quietly getting control of our manufactures, commerce, mining 
and agriculture. With the ballot-box in their hands they would 
soon be able to control the elections and place Ah Tuck in the 
Gubernatorial Chair. Oil and water will never mix. We must all 
become Chinamen or Americans. We will have to starve, tight or 
emigrate, if Congress does not modify the Treaty and check im- 
migration. "It is not numbers that make a great country," says 
Lord Bacon, "it depends on the bravery, the virtue, the intelli- 
gence, the industry of her peasantry." A nation with forty-five 
millions of inhabitants wants no further immigration of inferior 
races. It has a right to select from the best. It is time that we 
were beginning to crystalHze and form a national character of our 

own. 

Elect Gen. Hancock and English, and you will see a mighty tidal 
wave sweeping over the country that will revive our commerce, 
trade and manufactures, which can be done as cheaply here as in 
Europe. It is easier to bring over the operators, than to send food 
and raw material three thousand miles to get it worked up. There 
is no reason why we should pay the manufacturers of the Eastern 
States 50 or 100 per cent, profit on the goods we use. We want 
free trade, a ready exchange for our wheat and raw material. It 
will give the people a chance to have the books overhauled and see 
how much has been stolen; there is nothyig like a settlement now 
and then, a general purification and renovation. It will let the outs 
in, and it will give the democrats a chance to pick up a few crumbs. 
"For," said an old democrat, "we can beat Dr. Tanner, we have 
been starving for twenty years and ain't dea3 yet." 

Above all, it will bring peace and harmony ; it will end this in- 
fernal cry about the negro and the solid South which will never be 
ended so long as the Republican party is in power. It will unite 
the blue and the grey once more into a band of brothers who will 



[11] 

shake hands over the bloodj chasm, and fall into line under the 
gallant Hancock. They will then bury the bloody shirt, and leave 
the people of the North and the South to discuss other and nobler 
questions of state policy. It will leave the South free to attend to 
their own domestic relations, and the North to do the same, and it 
will enable us to say, "John you must go ; we dont want you ; you 
won't adopt our civilization and we are not ready to adopt yours ; 
we don't want any more disturbing element to involve us in another 
civil war." 

We wish to inaugurate the reign of peace and prosperity, and to 
mold the heterogeneous elements that now represent all the white 
races into one homogeneous type known as America, whose love of 
virtue, honor, liberty and patriotism is the admiration of the 
civilized world, speaking one language, having one common country 
that reaches from the Lakes in the north, to the Gulf of Mexico in 
the south ; that spans the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
Ocean, embracing every variety of climate, soil and production, 
mountains full of mineral wealth that the bountiful hand of Provi- 
dence has scattered to meet the wants of civilization as it presses 
up to the high and exalted position of a free and independent people, 
capable of choosing the best man to govern us — a sound democrat 
— General Hancock. 



C 32 



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